


she spoke with a voice that disrupted the sky

by LadyAlice101



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Dark!Dany, F/M, Jaime is defs in love with sansa through the middle of this fic, POV Jaime Lannister, Political!Jon, and so I'm tagging it as, but its jonsa and brienne/jaime endgame, i mean who isn't, if you've read my other fics and thought that like them this would have no plot, s8 spec, then you'd be RIGHT, though more plot heavy than normal tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-19 03:36:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18130427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAlice101/pseuds/LadyAlice101
Summary: “You don’t understand,” she snaps, but oh, he does. He has heard those words fall from his own lips far too many times to not understand.“I’ve suspected for a while now,” he admits. “I have some experience in this area.”Sansa stands abruptly, fury on her face. “Do not compare this to you and Cersei. It is nothing like that.”or:// Jaime goes North to warn them of the threat Daenerys poses. He gets completely swept up in the storm that is Sansa Stark. And in her little secret.He’s particularly interested in her little secret.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes I read over this and think its an absolute masterpiece, my piece de resistance, my seventh symphony, and other times I read it and realize I’m so thoroughly spouting bullshit ive managed to chuck together tens of thousands of words and still not say one single goddamned thing 
> 
> ill leave you to read and make up your mind on which this is! 
> 
> this first chapter is a lil slow, but it needs to establish some things. 
> 
> the working summary for this was: "Jaime is bad at a lot of things: making good choices (good meaning both that either a. they work out well or b. they’re morally right).  
> He was good at fucking his sister, though.  
> He’s pretty sure Jon Snow has the same skill." 
> 
> as usual, this fic is finished, i just need to finish editing. it will have either 4 or 5 parts, depends on how i break it up. 
> 
> unbeta'd

Jaime arrives in Winterfell before Jon and Daenerys. He’s not quite sure how that’s possible, but he and Bronn had a smooth ride here, and they must have encountered some difficulties.

It’s probably for the best, Jaime knows. He needs to speak with Lady Sansa, and Daenerys would most certainly get in the way.

Considering, of course, that what he needs to speak about is Daenerys herself.

When he arrives at the gate, there’s no more fanfare than he anticipated. Less, perhaps, because it is bitterly cold and anyone out for too long would surely freeze. He’s half way frozen himself.

When the gates finally open, Brienne is standing just inside, staring out with a hardness to her gaze that Jaime knows to mean he’s done something particularly unforgivable. But he’s here, isn’t he, so he’s confident she’ll find it in her heart to hear him out eventually.

Brienne purses her lips up at him as his horse slowly takes him through the gate.

“No army, then?” she asks, brusquely, like she already knows the answer.

Jaime looks through the courtyard and up to the balustrade, Lady Sansa’s startling red hair visible even through the downpour of snow.

“No.”

Jaime looks down at Brienne.

“You came anyway.”

He doesn’t say anything, isn’t sure what to say anyway, but Bronn saves him the trouble by brushing past him. A stablehand takes the horses reigns from Bronn as he dismounts. Jaime follows quickly after.

“I need to speak with Lady Stark.” Jaime nods his head towards where the eldest Stark girl stood - though with a quick look he can see she is no longer there - rubbing his hand over his opposite arm.

“I think you should turn around and go back South, actually,” Brienne snarks at him.

“That would surer mean death than staying here, I think,” Jaime replies back, giving up his futile effort to get some warmth.

“I’m not sure why you think I care,” a voice interrupts. Jaime turns to see the beautiful Lady Stark standing behind him. “You did, after all, almost kill my brother.”

“Almost, of course, being the operative word,” Jaime says, and he’d meant it in jest, really, though he should know better by now than to makes jokes like that.

Sansa is unimpressed.

He steps towards her, intending to take her hand and lay a kiss upon her knuckles, but she keeps her hands by her sides and raises a disdainful brow at him.

“I’m here to protect the realm,” Jaime announces, with as much self-announced fanfare a man can muster in such conditions.

“I’m sure a single man will be a big help,” Sansa deadpans, then turns away from him, presumably to go back inside. Jaime knows immediately that it was Sansa who knew Cersei to be lying in her pledge of troops, and wonders no longer how Brienne had known when he had not.

Seeing that he truly is unwelcome here, though he had expected nothing less, he says bluntly what he knows will get her attention.

“I’m also here to warn you about Daenerys Targaryen.”

As expected, Sansa stops immediately. She is covered head to toe in thick furs, but he can still see her spine straighten.

She says nothing, but she doesn’t need to. Jaime knows that she, like any good leader, will be desperate for information on a would-be usurper.

Sansa nods her head towards the main doors into Winterfell Castle, and Jaime follows behind her immediately.

 

-

 

“Daenerys hasn’t arrived yet?” Jaime immediately clarifies as he sits down at the table in what he presumes is Winterfell’s war room. It’s smaller than that in the Red Keep, of course, and worn down, but he can guess the whole castle is like that.

Winterfell is a true skeleton.

He wonders what is keeping it and the North together.

The table consists of himself and Bronn, the Lady Sansa and Brienne, Sansa’s little sister Arya who Jaime knows stayed in King’s Landing but who he can’t remember for the life of him, and a portly man who is shifting very nervously in his chair.

Every single one of them averts their eyes from him as his question finishes, even Lady Sansa.

“No,” she answers him. “They haven’t.”

Jaime nods, encouraged. “Good, that’s good. Have any of you met her yet?”

Brienne nods, of course, but no one else does.

Jaime leans forward. “Do _not_ let het get her hands on Winterfell.”

Everyone shifts around again, that guilty air about them that makes dread sink in his stomach.

Sansa purses her lips, ignoring the tension in the air, and says, “Why do you say that, Ser?”

For as long as it took for him to arrive in Winterfell, and as fervently as he wishes to convey his message, he had not thought on his exact words in any detail. He had always thought that the right words would come to him when he needed them, but now he is here he doesn’t know where to start.

So he starts from the beginning.

“I got my name Kingslayer many years ago,” Jamie says slowly, his fingers splayed on the table in front of him. He watches his hand for a second, letting the silence drape over them all with suffocation. “I regret a great many things about my life, but killing Aerys Targaryen is not one of them.”

A tense quiet falls, and it seems as though all the breathing in the room stops.

Jamie leans forward, his chair creaking, breaking the tension in the room abruptly. He leans his golden-handed arm on the table and clenches the fist of his other hand.

“He kept saying –“ Jamie breaks off, and clears his throat. It’s been so many years, and still the memory of standing there, his king in front of him, laughing at the pain of his people, sadism in his eyes and heart – it still makes his throat close up. “He kept saying, _burn them all._ I thought the time for Targaryen’s with madness in their blood was over. But then – then I met her on the battlefield.”

No one reacts, though he didn’t expect them to. They don’t understand, yet, but he will make them see.

“There is honour in battle,” Jamie says angrily, jabbing at the table. “There is supposed to be honour in winning within the boundaries, and there is honour in falling to a worthy opponent. But she – she burned the grain that was to feed the people. She flew on her dragon to kill, not to win. And afterwards, she gave them a choice, to bend the knee or die, which is no choice at all. She burnt the Tarly’s, father and son –“

There is an instant uproar at the table. Jaime’s not exactly sure what he’s said to cause such a reaction, but if they’re enraged by their supposed Queen, then he’s done his job.

“Sam,” Sansa says gently, placing her hand on the arm of the portly man who Jaime assumes is Sam. Everyone else quiets. “Are you okay?”

Sam pushes back from the table. “If I may be excused, Your Grace.”

“Of course, Sam,” Sansa says, looking after him in concern.

 _Your Grace?_ Jaime thinks dumbly for a second, then he blinks through the shock and realizes that of course the man means Lady Sansa. Queen Sansa.

Jaime lets a smile curl on his lip. So the Northerner’s had some sense after all.

“Who was that?” Jamie questions, after the door closes.

“He is to be our Maester, eventually,” Sansa says evenly. “Samwell Tarly.”

Jamie’s eyes widen and he sits back in his seat. _Shit._ “If I had known –“

“If _we_ had known,” Sansa interrupts, “I would have stopped you.”

Slowly, as the disgruntled group settles, he says, “I would have thought news of it reached far across the kingdoms.”

Surely, he thinks, that Cersei would take advantage of something like that. It doesn’t seem right that Winterfell could have no knowledge of such an atrocious act that could so easily put the North at odds with Daenerys.

“Perhaps some information has been withheld from us.”

Jaime knows that Sansa isn’t stupid. He’s been in this room with her for all of ten minutes and already he can tell she’s one of the most intelligent women he’s ever come across. It’s a far cry from the girl he knew in King’s Landing, but, then again, maybe she’s always been like this. Still, she must know that that isn’t a good enough explanation.

“What are you doing here, Ser Jaime?” Sansa finally asks. _Smart,_ he thinks, yet again. Distract those around the table from the possibility that they’re being manipulated.

Jamie leans forward. Brienne and Arya instinctively lean towards their Queen. They surely can’t be worried he will try and hurt her, try and change his Kingslayer mantle to Queenslayer, though perhaps they grow more than the fair share of weary of him with their monarch sitting in such close and unprotected quarters to him.

“I have come to pledge to serve the realm,” he says intently, ignoring them. “I will help defend against the White Walker threat. Do you have a plan for what happens afterwards?”

Sansa holds her chin high. “I don’t think that it’s much of your concern, Ser Jamie, as I assume you’ll go back down South to serve _your_ Queen.”

Jamie relaxes back into his chair, and drums his fingers on the table. It is not entirely selfless, the reason he is here.

He doesn’t know where else to go, afterwards.

“Cersei isn’t my Queen,” he says finally. “And I will not let Daenerys Targeryen be either.” He looks into her eyes intently. “So that leaves only one other candidate.”

“Queen Sansa?” Brienne interrupts incredulously. “You would bend the knee to the Starks?”

“Perhaps not today,” he admits truthfully, and can hardly fault himself for not being willing to bend to a monarch he didn’t even know existed. “I would first prefer to make sure she’s not as mad for power as everyone else.”

The remaining in the room bristle at the insult, and Brienne opens her mouth to rebuke, but Sansa holds up her hand.

“Ser Jamie, you must understand the position I’m in,” she says firmly, clasping her hands in front of her. “You permanently crippled my brother. You blindly did Cersei’s bidding for years and years, I saw it with my own eyes. How am I even supposed to trust you to stay within the walls of Winterfell, let alone believe that you’ve sworn true fealty to me?”

He sighs and shrugs, suddenly weary with the conversation and with the world. He cannot convince her to trust him, not with such barbed accusations thrown at him with such conviction, and he will not beg. “I guess you’ll just have to believe me.”

Sansa eyes him for a long time, then nods. “Aye, I suppose I will.”

He can’t see how that is possibly good enough, but if it’s enough for Queen Sansa then he will not protest any further.

Sansa’s odd little sister, Arya, moves for the first time. It’s just to throw an incredulous look at her older sister, an expression Jaime is sure is mirrored on his own face, but Sansa ignores them both and stands.

She grips something in her hand tightly, and if he concentrates he can perhaps see the edges of parchment.

“Lord Lannister, you may remain here in Winterfell, but I am confining you to your rooms. You will be allowed to continue to train with my knight Brienne in the privacy of a secluded training yard. You aren’t to make your presence known to anyone residing here, even the serving hands.” Sansa turns her attention from him to everyone at the table. “I received word last night that Daenerys’ retinue is set to arrive in three days’ time. For now, we aren’t to let neither Jon nor Daenerys know the crown has passed to me. Let them both think that we will follow Jon’s lead and bend the knee. I’m meeting with the Lords after this to discuss this matter with them. You are all dismissed.”

Surely he heard that wrong. Snow _bent the knee_? Gods, what a foolish bastard.

He can see now why they had all shifted so nervously at the beginning of the meeting. Because Winterfell had already been given away, and because Jon has been unknowingly ousted over it.

Queen Sansa stands with all the grace and poise that Cersei wishes she possessed, and leans her head towards the door.

“I’ll show you to your rooms, Kingslayer.”

Jaime bites his tongue at the name, but does not argue. He can see that she is already extending as much hospitality as she is willing, and Winterfell may be cold and miserable but it is not as bad as being outside.

If he is fed a warm meal tonight with the opportunity to finally bathe and sleep through the night without having to keep watch, then he will be grateful.

Brienne and Lady Arya accompany the Queen as she first guides Bronn and then himself to spare rooms.

“The door will be locked,” Sansa says as she stands in the door to his rooms. He looks around. They’re bare, just a cot pushed against the wall, animal skins on the floor and a table underneath a small window.

He turns back to her, and she’s raised a challenging brow as if he’s going to argue with her over that fact.

It’s warm in here, he notes. He remembers, vaguely, a story of water running through the castle’s walls.

“As you wish.”

She turns from him slowly, as if she expected something more from him, then steels herself and leaves without another word.

Jaime stares at the door as the lock clicks, then remains in place a few moments longer.

He’s left wanting for a bath, but he can’t complain about the warmth. He shucks his furs, then his overcoat, then sits to pull his boots off.

The floor is colder under his feet than he expected, but the skins and his socks keep most of the chill out.

Jaime stands from the bed and wanders over to the desk. It’s bare on top, and pulling out the drawers reveals nothing, not even parchment or an ink well. If he leans over the desk he can see through the window and out in to the courtyard, though there’s nothing to see with the heavy snowfall.

He resolves to move the desk on the morn so he can see out more easily.

With nothing better to do, and a bone deep tiredness making him weary, Jaime lays on the cot and closes his eyes.

 

He wakes to the deep groan of the door opening. He can smell the food before he can see who is bringing it, and he sits up eagerly.

It’s the Lady Arya who has brought it, presumably because Sansa has ordered no one to know of his presence in Winterfell, but Jaime still finds it a little odd.

Arya leaves without a glance or a word, and Jaime rolls his eyes but stands to go to the desk where Arya has left it.

A thick meat broth with warm bread awaits him, and Jaime is impressed with the heartiness of the meal. He had definitely expected food to be scarce.

He learns over the next few days that there is nothing else on offer.

He spends his time in complete solitary, light filling his room through the window the only way he can gauge how much time is elapsing. Arya brings him food two times a day, and while there is a small toilet off his room he does not get an opportunity to bathe.

He rearranges his room several times, as there is little else to do. Arya raises her brows at him the first time, but does not again make any acknowledgement of him.

On the fifth day, as Jaime stands in the middle of the room pondering what configuration he can try today, the lock clicks and the door swings open.

He turns at the unexpected entry. Arya always knocks once before she comes in.

Brienne is standing awkwardly in the doorway. Jaime wants to smile as he takes her in, but he’s afraid he’s forgotten how.

“Queen Sansa wanted me to give you this.”

She holds out an old worn book.

Jaime stares at Brienne for a moment, who rolls her eyes and waves it around.

Jaime steps forward to take it from her. The cover is faded and the book is not particularly heavy, but an unexpected gratefulness wells up in him.

Brienne turns on her heel and leaves, and he shouts a, “Thank you!” through the door with the hope she does hear it.

It’s a book of sonnets and poetry, and five days ago he would have scoffed but that was before he’d spent too many hours alone with his thoughts.

So he lays down and spends his entire day reading the book that has _Belongs to Sansa Stark_ inscribed on the front page.

When Arya comes in with supper, Jaime is so engaged he almost doesn’t realize he isn’t alone.

She turns on her heel quickly, and Jaime has just enough time to squeeze in, “Bring a quill next time,” before she’s out the door.

Surprisingly, Arya does as he asks. She glares at him fiercely of course, in a way that lets him know she thoroughly wishes to stab him with the quill instead of gift it to him, but he is grateful nonetheless.

He spends the morning finishing the book, then the afternoon pondering exactly what he will write.

In the end, he lets out a huff of breath then sits down in the chair at the desk, smoothing his fingers over the worn cover of the book, then opens it to it’s front page gently.

His penmanship does not match her own neat writing, and it looks especially scrawled so close to hers, but it is good enough.

_Perhaps bring a book on wartime next? Maybe then I can serve my glorious purpose and help you win a war._

Jaime closes the cover and pushes the book so it sits right in the corner of the desk, an equal inch from each edge.

He wakes the next morning to a plate of food and the book disappeared.

With nothing to entertain him now, his day stretches longer than it had previously. He’s had the taste of entertainment, now, and with nothing to do he has no choice but to change the layout of his room. Again.

It’s near on the original, now, expect the desk is not underneath the window, instead leaving space to be able to gaze out at the courtyard.

He spends several hours memorizing the view from each angle, standing in different positions to be able to see a wide arc from the stables to the main gate, though he can only ever get a sliver of it.

Eventually, though, as always, the sun sets and Arya comes in with food. Jaime can’t help the delighted grin that spreads across his face when he see’s she has another book with her.

He picks it up without even looking at his food.

He opens the cover, and it’s not a wartime book, it’s perhaps even further away from that than the last.

Sansa has written in the front.

_I hardly think you’re in a position to bargain._

A grin settles on his face. The book suddenly feels chosen with meaning, unlike the last which had felt like he was an afterthought, something she’d felt vaguely bad about locking away and so was providing with some kind of comfort.

This, now, feels challenging. He’s always liked a challenge.

The grin stays on his face through his meal and until he falls asleep.

When he wakes, he rolls over immediately, rubbing his eyes with his palms as he does.

The book is lying on the ground beside his cot, right where he left it, and he picks it up. He doesn’t open it, not just yet, instead leaning back in the cot and lifting the book to just stare at the cover.

He isn’t sure what this feeling is, this kind of _gratefulness._ Perhaps he should feel useless in here, resentful maybe that he can’t much leave, maybe even like a dirty little secret which he is so loathe to be again, and maybe he will feel that way soon.

But he doesn’t, not really. It’s actually rather freeing, having absolutely no one expect anything from you, no one to whisper about you or distrust you. He lives in his own little protected bubble, and it’s peaceful.

He’s been through worse.

Jaime smoothens a hand over the cover of the book, then opens it to where he left off. By the time Arya comes in with the morning meal, he is on the last poem.

“Wait, wait,” he stumbles out, sitting up in the bed, his eyes locked on the passage.

Arya stills in the room, though he hears her shift her feet impatiently.

He finishes the last poem, then stands from his cot.

“Just, ah, one second,” he says, and shoots her a smile, hoping to waylay her, but it obviously doesn’t work because she raises an unimpressed eyebrow and her hand hovers over her hip, where her small sword is strapped.

“One second,” he repeats, fumbling at his desk for the quill and ink well. He scratches the tip of the quill against his tongue, then dips it in the ink well.

Jaime flips open the cover of the book, to the title page, _Belongs to Sansa Stark_ inscribed at the top. He wonders what to write. He’d hoped to have a bit more time to write something meaningful, but he wants to return this book this morning so he can get another one at nightfall.

Sansa’s own text is written at the top, _I hardly think you’re in a position to bargain_ bold and taunting.

He pauses once again, then turns to the last page, the final line of text a line that had been repeated throughout and which has struck him as profound every time he’s read it.

He bites his lip, flips back to the front page, and writes down the text.

Jaime lets it dry for a moment then shuts the book and hands it Arya.

Arya scoffs and immediately opens it up to see what he wrote.

_Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent._

Arya raises a brow at him as she looks up to him.

“And of which can you not speak, Kingslayer?”

Jaime sets back his shoulders and crosses his arms.

“And you suppose I should speak it to you?”

Arya snaps the book shut and glares at him. He hadn’t expected the conversation to be over, but obviously it is because she turns and leaves without another word.

 

-

 

Writing in the front of books becomes common for them. He has not seen Sansa since he first arrived, about two weeks previous, but still he communicates deeply with her. They reciprocate their favourite passages, and inch by inch Jaime bares his soul.

He ends up pledging to her in writing one evening, and the book the next day accepts him. It is a book on Winterfell’s fortifications and the best way to defend the castle.

That day a bath arrives for him, Brienne and Bronn carrying the heavy thing. Arya comes shortly thereafter to fill it with water for him. He doesn’t exchange any words with any of them, finding it all extremely odd, that Sansa is going to such lengths to conceal his presence here.

Still, as soon as Arya is done, he immediately undresses and slips into the bath and doesn’t get out until the water is colder than the air around him.

There’s a sweet knock on the door as Jaime finishes dressing after he gets out from the bath.

He doesn’t bother with adorning his shoes, as he so often does not these days, instead calling out for the person to enter. He knows who it must be before the door has even opened.

Not a single person has adhered so closely to highborn protocol with him, and he can think of only one who would.

Sansa stands in the door, one hand resting across her navel, the other squeezing something tightly.

“What brings Your Grace here this evening?” Jaime asks with grandeur. “Not my good behavior, I hope.”

“Jon is predicted to arrive on the morn,” Sansa tells him. Perhaps this announcement is what she clings so tightly to in her fist. She closes the door, but does not move from the entryway. “I’ve come to inform you that it changes nothing of your situation.”

Jaime cocks his head. Surely such an insistence could have been made by someone else.

“Yes, you had already made that quite clear.”

Sansa hesitates, her lips pursed, then sweeps further into the room so she can look out the window and down into the courtyard.

He wonders how she can stand to be so near him, can trust him so much as to turn her back to him.

Perhaps his little letters had shed as much light on his nature as he had hoped they would.

“Why are you so afraid of Daenerys?” Sansa asks quietly from her place.

Jaime shifts on his feet slightly, wondering if he should stay standing where he is or get comfortable.

“I should think I made myself rather clear that first day,” Jaime says, staying where he is.

Sansa makes no visible move nor any audible sound.

“Do you mean why am I so afraid she might rule the North?” he asks.

Sansa’s long red hair sways against her back as she shakes her head. His vision is mesmerized for a moment, so he distracts himself for a second by taking a seat at his desk.

“I _mean_ ,” she says, a profundity to her voice that Jaime does not understand, “why do you care? Do you truly, truly wish to live here, under my rule, _Stark_ rule? I am less than half your age, and a woman at that. You do not have any discernable reason to be here.”

To her, perhaps he doesn’t. To him, she is absolution.

Sansa turns away from the window and faces him.

“I think I know why are you here, though,” she says softly, and he almost believes her, but how could she? She has not seen him since he first arrived, and he had hardly known the truth as he rode North.

It was only upon seeing her that he had realized.

“I think you came here because you think I could be your redemption, your salvation.”

He blinks at her accuracy. Her perspicacity startles him, and he finds he has no answer to her.

She seems to know him better than anyone else ever has.

“There is no other reason for you to be here, to promise to be so loyal to me.”

Jaime manages to find his tongue, but he does not have the same ability for insight as she does, and so says something that makes him feel rather silly when she answers. “Would it not be reason enough for you to simply deserve loyalty?”

She fixes him with a heavy stare. “No,” she says, with so much gravity in her voice that he knows this is something she learnt with great difficulty. “That’s not how the world works.”

Jaime swallows the lodge in his throat as she sighs and turns away.

“I can be that for you. Your redemption.”

Again, Jaime’s mouth goes dry with her gall. She has a courage he will not even pretend he possesses.

“But I need you to be something for me.” And this is something Jaime understands. Exchange. “Will you?”

He tilts his head at her. “I don’t know what I can be other than a protector.”

She does not waver in her conviction, does not move her eyes from his. “I don’t need a protector. I have two I trust with my life and with the North.”

“Then what do you desire me to be?”

He cannot see what is it she is missing, what she thinks he can give her that no one else can.

“A confidant.”

For the third time, Jaime feels his breath stop. He does not understand what she’s asking, _why_ she’s asking, and the confusion makes him drop his gaze first.

Queen Sansa continues to be an enigma for him, but for all he’s worth he knows she’s worth a thousand times more.

For the first time, he wonders exactly what Cersei did to her. What her following journey was like. He wonders what, exactly, has changed her so thoroughly from the quivering girl he first met to the woman who stands tall and proud before him now.

It must always have been in her.

He wants to find out.

“I can be that for you.” He repeats her words before he realizes the significance of this agreement. He throws a smirk at her to lift the gravity. “Who else would I tell?”

Sansa seems satisfied enough with this answer, because she turns away from him and back to the window. She will not be able to see the main gate from her angle, he knows, but she has a direct view at the training yard.

“Brienne reminded me today that you are supposed to train secretly with her.”

Jaime has spent many hours standing in her exact spot and thinking on the same subject.

“Yes, I had wondered on that myself,” he says casually, like he has not counted the hours since he last picked up a sword.

Sansa lips quirk like she sees right through him. “I must admit it slipped my mind.”

He understands that this is how her confidence starts: not with secrets but with admissions.

He treads carefully, unwilling to ruin what has only just started. She has gifted him something beautiful, something he already treasures even though he knows not what it entails, and he will not break it so soon.

Break it he will, inevitably, as he does so unintentionally with everything, but not today. Not yet.

Sansa does not part with a goodbye, instead fixing him with a small smile, before she sweeps out with all the grace with which she entered.

Jaime blinks at the door. Now she is gone, he realizes how affected he had been by her.

“Strange,” he mutters.        

He wonders when she will be back.

With nothing better to do, a full tummy and clean body, Jaime falls down on his bed, staring out at the night and feeling almost glad that he is not out playing at being a soldier.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, look, while this DOES have more plot than usual for me, don't let that fool you into thinking i thought any of it through or that there's ANY sense whatsoever to the timeline

Jaime wakes at daybreak with the sound of trumpet fare fit for a King.

It probably is, Jaime thinks blearily as he rubs his eyes. He blinks a few times, then pulls himself up from the bed and to the window.

He’s glad that he isn’t down there, honestly. For all his highborn training, he doesn’t know how he would be able to control the disgust he so keenly feels at Daenerys Targaryen.

Jaime doesn’t even remember if he met Jon Snow when he first came to Winterfell, but he has seen him recently enough in King’s Landing to recognize him immediately. Not that he’s difficult to recognize anyway, as alike to Eddard Stark as he is.

Jon rides in first, though Daenerys and her retinue are close behind him. Jon helps Daenerys down from her horse before he greets his family, in the deference that Daenerys would be due if she were Queen. Snow brings Daenerys before his family. Jaime obviously can’t hear what they’re saying, and they’re too far away for him to even pretend he can read their lips.

When the formal introductions are done, Daenerys goes back to her retinue while Jon lingers with his family for a moment.

He sees Snow hug Arya, then Bran, who Jaime makes himself stare at, makes himself see what he’s done.

He sees Sansa embrace Snow with the gentleness of a lover, and he see’s them embrace for far too long.

Jaime’s brow furrows.

He had noticed something yesterday, the intimacy with which Sansa had spoken Jon’s name.

He doesn’t understand it, not yet, but there is a twinge in his gut that speaks of something familiar.

Shortly thereafter, they disappear inside, Daenerys’ army slowly riding in and setting up camp outside the castle walls.

Jaime spends the entire day and night alone, no books nor company present, while Sansa hosts a feast with a would-be Queen and a half-brother that gave away her home.

 

Jaime does not see Sansa again for three days. He feels overlooked, and perhaps it is selfish of him but he can be truthful with himself. He wants to talk with her.

He inquires to Arya over her sisters whereabouts, but she gives him a withering glare that clues him in to exactly how she feels about him asking.

He wonders on Sansa’s nature, that she can so easily welcome him when her own sister, bred and raised with the same values, cannot.

Truth be told, though, Arya Stark scares him. Not in the same way that Sansa scares him, that intimidating intelligence that glows in her eyes and makes him want to bow at her feet, or the way Brienne scares him, that terrifying loyalty she has that he fears will get her killed. She scares him because he knows she wants so badly to kill him, and that she would, consequences be damned. He is sure she’s the type to slit his throat while he sleeps and not at all care what anyone would think of it.

Jaime stands in the middle of his room, having just finished some exercises to keep his strength up. If he’s to fight in the War, he will need to be able to hold a sword.

He takes and holds a deep breath, and in the ensuing silence he can hear someone coming down the hall towards his room. He lets his breath out and looks to the door.

There are angry footsteps that echo loudly, and he is standing quietly and close enough to the door that he can hear it clearly.

“Jon, stop following me!” He hears Sansa hiss. “I don’t want to look at you.”

Harsh. Jaime can’t help but wince at the ice in Sansa’s tone.

The noise of the steps stops, the two of them paused outside Jaime’s room. He wonders if Sansa realizes.

Does Jon even know Jaime is here?

“Sansa –“

Jaime has heard Jon speak Daenerys’ name before. He has now heard Jon speak Sansa’s. Jaime would not have even needed that reference point of Jon’s speech to realize that Sansa’s name falls from Snow’s lips in something like worship.

If Sansa realizes, it does not make her go easier on him.

“You _know_ what getting Winterfell back cost me, Jon. How could you ever have thought that for one second I could stand to be near you when you knew _everything_ and you gave it away anyway?”

“Sansa, please,” Snow says, and his tone is that of a heartbroken, pleading man. Jaime himself almost feels bad for him. Maybe Sansa does, too. “Please, just trust me.”

“ _Trust you?!”_

Maybe not.

“How can you -!” There is an undeniable rage in her voice, something Jaime has never heard before, directed at him or anyone else. He isn’t surprised that she has it in her, though, or that it’s this that has brought it out.

“I did trust you, Jon,” Sansa says, and this time it isn’t with so much fury. It is undeniable disappointment. In herself or in Jon, Jaime wonders. “Against my better judgment, I thought, ‘No, Sansa, this is Jon. He wouldn’t.’ You were gone for moons, Jon. You give her the North and you tell me so in a measly scroll, but still I think – no, Sansa, no matter what anyone else says, Jon is on your side - and then you, you come back and I hear that you’re - . . . you _slept_ with her, Jon. What else am I supposed to believe?”

“Sansa -.”

“No, _no!_ I won’t make any more of a fool of myself. Just go, Jon.”

“Please,” Snow says again. Jaime would almost not believe a man could beg so much in a single conversation, but he can imagine himself being the same if it were Sansa he were trying to curry the favour of. She inspires something that otherwise would not be there. “Please, can we not waste this remaining time?”

Jaime is suddenly outraged on Sansa’s behalf. Clearly Jon is insinuating he doesn’t think he’ll return from the War, and he dare try and guilt her into taking pity and forgiving him? After what he did?

“Do not. Do _not,_ ” Sansa demands, and that fury is back.

“Don’t what?” Snow asks, like the foolish man he is.

“Don’t force me to forgive you when I feel so betrayed. You did this, not me.”

Jaime backs away from his door. He doesn’t need to hear any more.

He hopes that when the argument is over, Sansa won’t come in. He isn’t sure how he could comfort her after such a fight, and he isn’t sure either of them could address why it is that she’s so upset.

She has every right to be upset over Jon’s actions alone, but Jaime is no fool. He knows she’s feels so acutely betrayed because she wanted Jon to be better for her. She wanted him to be it, and she had let herself believe and hope because she is too pure to not.

Sansa does come in, though. Only moments later his door cracks and Sansa stands there. She closes the door behind her quietly, then leans her back against it, her hair coming loose from its braid.

Jaime opens his mouth, but he doesn’t know what to say.

She probably already knows he heard.

Clearly, she doesn’t want to talk about it either.

Sansa pushes the hair from her face and focuses on her other big problem. “I’ve got a council meeting with Daenerys tomorrow.”

Jaime raises a brow. “Tomorrow? What have you been doing for three days?”

“We’ve been planning for the war,” Sansa says. “I’ve not been included much. Tomorrow is about the future of the North. As the Lady of Winterfell and the last eldest trueborn Stark I have something to offer.”

Jaime feels a rage bubble up in him. She’s the _Queen_ and she’s _not been included much?_

“They don’t know I was crowned, remember?” she says softly. “And I don’t have much to offer in a war council. My contribution has been keeping the people safe.”

Jaime feels bewildered. “Is that not - . . . that’s the entire fucking point of fighting a war! To keep the people safe! And they think because you don’t know the difference between a single and a double envelopment that your opinion is not worthy?”

Sansa’s lips twitch down and Jaime sighs loudly.

“How has it been going with Brienne?” There’s a curiosity to her voice that lets him know she’s not just asking for the sake of it. She’s inquisitive for some other reason.

Jaime just grunts and holds up his gold hand.

Sansa turns her head away. “I should go,” she says quietly.

And because he’s still stupidly high on Sansa’s trust, he blurts, “Do you want to talk about what happened with Snow?”

Sansa doesn’t reply, just closes her eyes and leans her head back against the door.

“I’ll see you tomorrow evening,” she tells him.

She pushes back from the door and turns to leave, then hesitates, her delicate hand resting on the knob.

“It’s whether or not one or two flanks break through and circle to attack from the rear.”

Jaime blinks, caught off guard by her sudden answer. “What?” he asks dumbly.

She turns her head to look at him over her shoulder. “The difference between a single and a double envelopment.”

Jaime is absolutely floored, and for several moments he can’t think of a single thing to say.

“Goodnight, Ser Jaime,” she says, and then she is gone.

Jaime is already counting the seconds until she’s back.

 

The next day, Sansa bursts through the door and no sooner has it closed than she is saying, “She would have to stand trial.”

Jaime is confused, at first, still stuck in the throes of the prose he is reading, but a look at her anxious face reminds him that she had a council meeting with Daenerys this morning.

Jaime folds the corner of his book page slowly then lets the book fall shut, thinking over how he will respond, what she wants him to say. He sits up from the cot and places the book beside him, then looks up to his Queen.

“Yes,” he replies, because it is true.

Sansa nods like she doesn’t already know it be true.

“I couldn’t just kill her,” Sansa continues, her voice wistful. Not of missing out on the murder, he is sure, but that it must take place under a guise of dishonesty that he is sure goes against all her better morals. “Her would-be people would think me no better than her.”

“You wouldn’t be,” Jaime responds, because this is true also.

Sansa nods like she doesn’t already know it be true.

“She deserves a fair trail like anyone else,” Sansa says.

Jaime’s thoughts turn towards his own brother, who had stood in place as a fabric of lies had been woven so thoroughly that it had pushed Tyrion to a moment of madness that had killed his own father.

Not madness, Jaime corrects himself, staring at the eldest remaining Stark. Vengeance.

Slowly, Jaime says, “She would still have to die,” because while the trial should be fair, it could never end in anything but that for Daenerys.

“Yes,” Sansa replies with a heavy sigh. She sounds as though the whole world sits on her shoulders, and Jaime thinks with a pang of pity that she is not at all wrong.

Sansa bites her lip, and Jaime realizes that what she is about to say is what she had truly come to him for in the first place.

“Would - . . .” She hesitates and looks away.

 _Say it,_ Jaime thinks. _Say it._

“Would Tyrion testify for her?” she asks.

 _Say it,_ Jaime tells himself. _Say it._

“I think he will.”

Sansa nods, and sighs again. “I will need Varys on my side,” she says, changing the subject. “Or, at least, for him to not spy so closely.”

“Varys is gutless,” Jaime supplies. “He will follow that who he thinks will best serve the realm. You need simply show him that that is you.”

“I could never trust him.”

“You don’t have to. You simply need trust that you are what’s best.”

“And if I’m not?”

“Then trust _me_ , Sansa. You are.”

 

-

 

Sansa has brought him three books and his evening meal today.

He rather enjoys seeing her face instead of Arya’s.

Sansa says nothing as she places everything on his table, arranging it neatly for him. He stands, silently as well, and takes a seat at the desk. She replaces him on his bed.

“How was your day?” she asks, when the only noise in the room is his spoon scraping on the now empty bowl.

“I didn’t see Brienne today.”

One corner of her lips twitch up. “And so that makes it a bad day?” she teases.

Jaime’s shoulders tense. “That’s not what I said.” He sounds defensive, even to himself.

“Okay,” she acquiesces, though she’s still smiling teasingly.

“How was yours?” Jaime demands, his arms crossed. “Did you see Jon?”

The smile falls from Sansa’s lips and she stands to leave.

“No, wait, wait, Sansa, wait.”

Jaime stands as well and meets her in the middle of the room.

She tries to push past him, but he grasps her wrist. “Please, don’t go,” he whispers.

“Don’t – don’t talk about him,” she mutters, and he gets that it’s less because she doesn’t want Jaime to talk about him and more because she can’t stand to think about it.

He lets go of her hand, but she doesn’t move from in front of him. Slowly, he puts his hands on her shoulders. He meets no resistance, so he lets his arms slide around her, and he pulls her in for a hug.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Jaime murmurs, and hopes she understands that it’s his way of apologizing.

Sansa doesn’t reply, just sighs against him.

“Tell me about your day?” Jaime asks, and Sansa pulls away and goes back to his bed, and just like that they pretend nothing happened.

Sansa doesn’t bring Jon up, and not just today. She doesn’t bring him up ever. Jaime finds it hard to believe that it’s because Snow isn’t doing anything. There’s a war brewing that Snow organized the entire Westerosi resistance of, he can’t now be leaving strategy to others. It’s a noticeable absence.

But if Sansa doesn’t want to talk about him, doesn’t bring him up, then neither will he.

It only confirms what he already knows.

“Daenerys was particularly difficult today,” Sansa is saying. “They’re about to mobilize and she still hasn’t won anyone’s favour. It’s making her even more unbearable.”

“As your confidant,” Jaime drawls with an indifference he doesn’t feel, his feet thudding as they prop up on the table, “I feel I must advise you to just get it over with and kill her.”

“You’re my confidant, not my advisor,” Sansa says, rolling her eyes. “Your job is to listen, not to speak.”

He shrugs. “I have a lot of opinions.”

“I literally could not care less.”

He shrugs again. “I think they’re of sound reason.”

“Killing her is not sound reason!”

“Well, not _yet,_ ” he replies, a dramatic exasperation marking his tone, “but after the War it will be.”

Sansa rubs the bridge of her nose. “Say I did orchestrate her death with no trial, Kingslayer. Who would rule, then? Jon? He doesn’t exactly have the political training to do it on his own, nor the patience. Me? My heart and head are too full with the people of the North, I can hardly even think about having so many more lives in my hands. _You?_ A traitor? You’ve betrayed everyone you’ve ever been loyal to, and the entire kingdom knows it. _And_ you push little boys out of windows. Or will the crown fall to someone like Littlefinger? Ambitious and greedy and too smart for their own good.”

Jaime is hurt that she has so easily lashed out at him. She knows his transgressions so keenly, knows exactly which of them haunts him at night.

It isn’t fair.

He’ll know better next time than to just assume she’s forgiven him.

“There are more ways for a country to be ruled than a federal monarchy, Sansa.” His own tone is curt, and regret flashes across her faces. “Westeros could split in to it’s original kingdoms –“

“ - And risk foreign invaders in such tumult –“

“ – A council could be established, representatives from all factions making decisions – “

“ – Everyone would act in their own interests, how would anything be decided? – “

“ – Hell, Westeros could become a fucking land of nomads no more civilized than the damned Dothraki, what does it even matter, Sansa? She can’t rule here.”

Sansa turns to leave, obviously overcome with the intensity of the conversation. She pauses at the door, her hand on the knob, and he wonders if she will say something further.

She doesn’t, only squeezes her spare fist.

Jaime doesn’t say anything, and it’s not until she rips the door open that he realizes she was waiting for him to stop her.

The night started so poorly, its only fitting it ends that way, too.

Jaime crosses the room as the door shuts, almost going to call to her from his side of the door. He presses his mouth shut when he realizes that she has not left, that she is still standing on the other side of the door.

Gently, so as not to make any noise, he leans his head against the door. He wonders if his breath is in time with hers.

Eventually, though, he hears her quiet steps fade away in to the distance.

It is not until he’s back in his bed that he realizes he didn’t hear the lock click in to place.

 

The next evening, Jaime decides it’s time to address something that should have been said long ago.

Sansa sits at his desk, flicking through the book she’s brought with her, trying to find a particular passage she wants to share with him.

Jaime leans against the wall, looking out the window to the snow-filled courtyard below. It’s look very different to the last time he was here, all those years ago. There are so many less people, the cold driving everyone indoors. The castle is in serious disrepair; he can even see it from here.

“Sansa,” Jaime says, interrupting whatever she was saying. From the corner of his eye he can see her look up at him, but he doesn’t turn his head. What he has to say he will say while avoiding her eye. “Have you forgiven me? For what I did to Bran?”

Sansa snaps the book shut. “No.”

Jaime bites his bottom lip. “Will you ever?”

“No.”

Jaime sighs and lets his head drop against the windowsill. She’s right to not forgive him. She shouldn’t, not ever. He ruined that boy’s life, and worse yet for the longest time he didn’t really care. He cares now. Sansa’s condemnation makes guilt eat away at him, and he’s glad. He doesn’t ever want to stop feeling guilty.

Slowly, Sansa says, “We could have gone a long time without ever addressing this.”

Yes, Jaime imagines they could have. He’s glad they haven’t.

His eyes drift from the courtyard and to his golden hand. Maybe it was always punishment for Bran, he ponders. He stole the boys’ legs, and so his hand was taken from him.

It’s even the same hand he used to push him from the tower.

“We could have,” he agrees quietly, “but we shouldn’t.”

 

The following evening, Jaime finds opportunity to discuss what he’s long suspected.

“I’ll be spending the next few evenings with Jon,” Sansa says as she stands to leave, her sentence a little too composed.

“Alright,” he says, carefully. “You’ll be doing what with him, then?”

Sansa flushes, and he knows he has her.

“His retinue leaves in a week,” she rushes to explain. “We’ll just be finalizing plans for Winterfell in his absence.”

“You know that doesn’t matter, right?” he says. “You are Queen. He does not have a say.”

“Not that he knows,” she mutters, clenching her fists.

“Is this what has had you so agitated?” Jaime prods. “That you’ve been dishonest with him?”

Sansa sits back down grumpily and folds her arms. He forgets, sometimes, how young she is.

“Perhaps you are jealous, then?” he continues, raising a brow. “Seeing Daenerys on his arm?”

“You don’t understand,” she snaps, but oh, he does. He has heard those words fall from his own lips far too many times to not understand.

“I’ve suspected for a while now,” he admits. “I have some experience in this area.”

Sansa stands abruptly, fury on her face. “Do _not_ compare this to you and Cersei. It is _nothing_ like that.”

He hadn’t meant to enrage her, honestly, especially after last night, and he hadn’t meant to imply anything dark about her feelings. He knows clear enough that this is not like what he had with Cersei, simply because Sansa is nothing like her and Jon is nothing like him.

They are good and he is not.

The shame, though, is something they must have in common.

Sansa flies out the door before he can fix it. For the second time in three nights, Jaime lays in bed and wonders he can’t just keep his big mouth shut.

 

Even though she had admitted she wouldn’t be coming for a few days, he still feels like she’s ignoring him.

It’s made all the worse, of course, by the fact that he cannot seek her out to make amends. He has to rely solely on her courage to face him after he leveled such accusations at her.

He chews on it so thoroughly that he begins to doubt himself, begins to think that maybe he was wrong, that all the telltale signs he had seen were misconstrued through his sinful eyes.

He spars with Brienne in the late evening every day to a flickering candle and the moonlight if they’re lucky, and he complains arduously about it until Brienne levels a, “How did you expect to fight in the Long Night, then? During the day?” and he feels so foolish that he doesn’t utter a word on it again.

Fighting with Brienne is tied for his favourite part of the day. He would be a fool for it to not.

He’s spent many years of his life in love, he knows what it feels like; even if his love for Brienne is different to anything he’s experienced before.

After five days of not seeing Sansa, she shows up after he’s had a particularly rough session with Brienne.

He does not get up from his bed as she enters, only grunts as she offers a quiet greeting.

“Ser Jaime?” she calls to him softly. He doesn’t reply, but shifts over in the bed so that she has space to sit down beside him if she wishes.

After feeling so conspiratorial for five days, he’s not sure he’s in the mood to speak with her.

The bed dips as she sits on it.

“You were right,” she says, and Jaime peeks up at her with wide eyes. “I was jealous. I _am_ jealous.”

Jaime pulls the covers away from his face so he can look up at her. “You don’t owe me an explanation,” he says. “I should not have pushed you to confess something you clearly have no wish to share.”

She sighs and looks away from him.

“I feel twisted,” she tells him. Her voice wavers with vulnerability. Jaime will not again offer a way out. If she wants to talk then he will let her, and if she wants to stop then that is her decision. “I feel dark on the inside.”

“Because you love him?” Jaime questions softly.

Slowly, Sansa nods. It is perhaps her first ever real acknowledgement of that. She buries her face in her hands. Jaime doesn’t offer any physical comfort, just continues to lay down, waiting for her to either speak or not speak.

“I feel like there must be something broken inside me. Something that Cersei o-or Ramsey perverted and crushed so far it is beyond repair and now I’m forever going to be a – a -.”

She cannot say whatever slur it is she thinks. That it’s incestuous at best, or that she’s a brother-fucker at worst.

Jaime waits for her to say something more, but she doesn’t speak again and she doesn’t move her hands from her face.

“At some point,” he offers, “you either will stop caring that it’s wrong, or you will stop loving him.”

“Did that happen to you?”

“I stopped caring for a very long time,” Jaime admits. He rubs over his golden hand with his good one, letting the action sooth him. “Then I stopped loving her.”

Sansa sighs heavily, a heartbroken sigh that is the most fitting it will ever be.

“Will you tell him before he goes?” Jaime asks. She must know as well as he does that she might not get another opportunity.

Sansa finally lets her hands drop, and she looks down at him, her eyes red and puffy.

He doesn’t comment on it.

“No,” she says, and her voice cracks.

Finally, Jaime reaches his hand out for her to take. She does so immediately, squeezing it almost painfully.

“If he dies, do you want it to be without him knowing?”

She doesn’t answer him.

“If you die,” he continues, softer, “do you want it to be without having told him?”

 

The next day, the day before the army is set to start mobilizing, Sansa comes to his room much later than usual. She’s frazzled and flustered and Jaime can’t work out if she’s here because she wants to talk or if she’s just here out of habit.

It takes three times of him calling out her name before she looks at him.

“Alright, what’s happened?” Jaime asks her as soon as she’s said hello back.

But she just shakes her head profusely like she doesn’t even know how to put it in to words.

“Sansa, you’re scaring me.”

Sansa blinks at him. “Talk about something else,” she commands him, then starts pacing around the room.

“Alright,” Jaime says slowly, then starts to describe his day. “I woke up very early this morning. The sun hadn’t even risen. It was a beautiful sunrise today.”

Sansa nods along, and he can easily pretend that it’s because she’s agreeing with what he’s saying as she’s so convincing. But she isn’t looking at him, she’s looking at the wall behind his bed, and that doesn’t bode well for distracting her.

“This text you’ve lent me is particularly fascinating,” he tries again. “Ten years is a very long time to be away and at war. The warrior – ah, what was his name?”

Sansa nods and hums like she agrees, and that’s how he knows something is really wrong. She didn’t answer the question. She loves answering questions.

Jaime isn’t sure exactly what to say. He doesn’t want to risk touching her for fear of scaring her, and he may only have a general idea on why but he knows she doesn’t welcome the touch of others.

He ponders for a few moments what it is he can say to shake her out of whatever trance she’s in, distract her if he can, because she’s obviously distressed, but in the moment he can think of nothing.

Instead, he tells her something he’s been thinking for days but hasn’t wanted to bring up.

“I think you could be Queen of the Seven Kingdoms,” Jaime says, and he truly believes it. He doesn’t exactly expect her to respond, especially not as fervently as she does. She balks away from him, almost shrinks in to herself. He knows immediately that he’s said the wrong thing, but he doesn’t know why and he doesn’t know why she’s had such a strong reaction so he hurries to explain himself. “I know the people will rally behind Snow, because he is Ned’s son, but he doesn’t have a House name. And there’s precedent, now, with Cersei on the Throne. I truly think you can do it.”

Sansa falls into the chair, the most ungraceful he’s ever seen her. She squeezes her face between her hands, her cheeks bulging and going red and she looks like she’s going to scream.

Just when Jaime is sure he’s really gone and fucked – well, _something,_ he’s not entirely sure what – up, Sansa spins in her chair so fast he’s a little startled.

“I need to tell you something,” she says, an urgency to her that he doesn’t exactly understand. It must show on his face, because she stands and strides over to him so fast that he doesn’t know how it happened.

She grasps his arm in her hand, and stares at him for several seconds too long, so long that he gets uncomfortable.

Just when he’s about to say something, probably extract himself from the situation, she speaks again.

“I have to tell you something,” she repeats. “It’s very important. Once I tell you, you can’t ever repeat it.”

“I -,” Jaime starts, then pauses. He looks down at Sansa, at the distress written so clearly over her face, and thinks, not for the first time, that he would do anything for her. “Yes. Yes.”

She takes a deep breath, then opens her mouth and blurts out a secret that changes everything.  

Jaime can’t think of a single thing while she spills Ned Stark’s sordid secret.

The Rebellion. That _fucking_ rebellion. Gods, Jaime, more than anyone, knows how much the Targaryen dynasty needed to end, but had the Baratheon’s been any better? The _Lannisters_ certainly aren’t.

The only House that is are the Starks, and apparently it’s half their fault.

That _fucking_ Throne.

And now Daenerys’ claim is threatened and _fuck,_ Jaime can’t think of a single thing that could put Winterfell, Sansa, in more danger.

“Why has Jon only been told now?” Jaime whispers harshly. He hadn’t meant to be so quiet, so fervent, but his voice is only conveying what he feels. “He’s been here for _weeks_.”

Sansa is in as much distress as he is.

“Bran said -.” Sansa lets out a big sigh and rubs her head as she sits down on his bed. He follows her lead and sits beside her. “Bran said he’s been trying to tell him, but hasn’t been able to find him alone.”

“What the _fuck_?”

“I hardly ever see Jon alone, either,” Sansa whispers. “He’s always planning, or training, or with – with Daenerys.”

“He couldn’t have tried a little harder?” Jaime asks, but he knows he’s blaming the wrong people.

“Ser Jaime,” Sansa says, a stern lilt to her voice, “perhaps you’d speak with a kinder inflection when talking about my family?”

Jaime feels properly chastised.

They sit in silence for a moment, when Sansa fidgets again.

“What?” Jaime asks immediately.

“There’s something else.”

Dread fills his stomach. Something other than this?

“The Wall has fallen.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime leaves his rooms for the first time since arriving and we see him interact with more than just Sansa.

Things get very messy, very quickly because of the turn of events. Sansa had spent several hours in his room with him, both talking nonsense and talking war.

Mostly, though, she cries and he holds her hand.

She leaves his chambers at the darkest point of the night, her face wet and swollen with her grief, but there is nothing more he can do for her and the longer she stays away from her chambers the more likely rumours will be to spread, so she does what she does best and leaves her desire in his room and departs it as Queen.

Jaime collapses onto his bed, his tired eyes closing before his head even hits the pillow.

He is awoken to harsh knocks on his door. He scrubs his face with his hand, and turns to look out the window. Light is breaking through, but it is the dim light of early morning. He can’t have slept more than three hours.

He opens the door to Sansa, who probably slept less than he and yet has put herself together so well he can hardly tell she spent so many hours last night with him.

“Sansa?” he asks blearily, because it’s morning. She never comes in the morning.

“Clean yourself up quickly,” she commands him. His back straightens involuntarily at her Queenly tone. “You’re to come with me.”

He nods and turns in the frame. He doesn’t know if Sansa will follow him in, and he should not have left the option open, really, but her pattern deviation and tone has pushed him to the defensive so quickly that unimportant details, such as modesty, are discarded in favour of swift action.

He is dressed in the armour he arrived at Winterfell in within ten minutes, and then he follows Sansa down the halls of the castle.

They stay in back halls and avoid any other soul, which is a little relieving, because it means at least that something has not gone too tragically wrong during the course of his sleep.

They pause at last outside a door that Brienne is posted in front of. She nods at him solemnly, and he quirks his lips slightly up at her.

Sansa turns to him, her hand half way reaching towards the door.

“Just . . . let me deal with them,” she tells him, pursing her lips.

Jaime raises a brow, then gestures grandly towards the door, indicating she should walk through first.

“Gods,” she mutters quickly, “this can only go well.”

She pulls open the door before he can say anything else.

Inside the chambers sits Arya, Bran, Samwell, Jon and . . .

“Tyrion.”

Tyrion’s eyes are as wide as Jon’s, the same amount of shock on both their faces, though Tyrion’s quickly morphs into a smile while Jon’s face sets into an angry scowl.

Jon’s hand falls to his sword, but Jaime ignores him, confident Sansa will not let him harm him. Instead, Jaime falls to a knee and embraces his brother.

“How did my ever loyal Lannister brother find his way here?” Tyrion asks as they part. “And in this weather? The days are getting frightfully cold and short.”

Jaime glances up to Sansa, who levels a warning glare at Jon. “He’s been here for weeks. Longer than you have.”

Jon groans and holds a hand to his forehead, turning on the spot in dismay.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Jon groans, his eyes pressed shut tightly.

Jaime would almost pity the poor fool for all he’s learnt in the last day, but he spent too many hours with a sobbing Sansa last night to truly feel bad for the boy.

“Ser Jaime is to stay here with me,” Sansa declares. Jaime turns to her, his eyes wide at this new information. He had expected to be sent off with everyone else, a valued advisor perhaps, but he had not ever imagined Sansa would keep him close as her protector.

Jon bursts out, “ _What_?” angrily, twirling back around to glare at him.

Arya nods, like she expected this, while Sam seems to be struggling to keep up with Jon’s anger, and Bran looks like he’s wholly bored of this conversation and Tyrion can’t take his eyes off Jaime long enough to realize he’s probably here for _some_ reason.

“Brienne is too worthy a fighter to remain in the castle, and Arya will not allow herself to be kept here for any reason. Not even me.”

Arya winces a little, but Jaime knows that its true.

“I trust Ser Jaime to keep me safe.”

Jaime would kill a thousand wights and die a thousand times before he let any harm befall her, but he isn’t entirely sure this is the correct choice.

Still, he says not a word.

“My Lady,” Tyrion interrupts hesitantly. Jaime swallows his tongue in a rush to not correct his brother with Sansa’s correct title. “I must confess, I wonder on your decision to hide my own brother’s presence from me.”

Sansa smiles sympathetically, but it is not the true and honest smile he has come to know of her. Jaime feels absolutely no need to protect his brother from Sansa’s cunning.

He wonders what that says of his character, that he will protect his Stark Queen over his brother now.

Maybe he truly is getting closer and closer to that redemption.

“My apologies, My Lord,” Sansa says soothingly.

Tyrion positively wilts under Sansa’s simpering tone, and Jaime almost rolls his eyes at his brothers’ weak nature. It would be hypocritical, he knows, his own fortitude constantly overcome by Sansa’s sweet words. A glance at Jon shows that the de-crowned King is furious with where Sansa’s attention is directed. Jon’s gaze shifts up to Jaime, and the glare is no less fierce when directed at him.

“I had only hoped to protect my guest from those who may harm him in my home,” Sansa continues, and smiles at Tyrion. “Having experienced a betrayal of guest rights myself, Lord Tyrion, I had hoped to spare the Lannisters such a fate.”

Oh. Wow. Whoa. Okay.

Jaime clears his throat uncomfortably, then a second time. Tyrion glances away in discomfort, and shifts on the spot.

Arya smirks a little where she sits, and Jon’s eyes go wide, like a deer at the wrong end of a hunter’s arrow.

“Lady Sansa has done an honorable job keeping me warm and fed,” Jaime says, trying to lift the tense air that has settled. “If she asks me to stay and defend her here, then I more than willingly oblige.”

Sansa nods. “The matter is settled, then.”

Arya’s gaze lifts up to him for a moment. He isn’t sure what she’s looking for, whether it’s something she’s been looking for for weeks. She must find whatever it is, though, because she turns away from him with naught but a complaint that he is to stay and protect her sister and Queen. Maybe he truly _is_ getting close to redemption.

“Sansa,” Jon says sharply, and Jaime’s attention immediately shifts to them, even though Tyrion comes to stand beside him.

Jaime knows enough of Sansa to guess that she won’t lightly take Jon’s tone with her, and he so desperately wishes to watch it unfold before his eyes instead of hear it second-hand from her, but he also knows enough of her that she would be just as mad with him were he to clue Tyrion in to the fact that he’s really rather invested in Sansa and her goals.

So he turns to smile at his brother and take a seat against the wall.

“I must admit,” Tyrion says quietly, as he settles beside him, “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

“After I met Daenerys in battle, you mean?” Jaime asks. He has to remind himself to tone down his provocation when Tyrion meets his eyes hesitantly.

“Well, yes,” Tyrion replies, his fingers drumming on his knees. “And yet here we are, on the same side.”

 _We aren’t on the same side,_ Jaime wants to say, and if he were younger, more inexperienced, he would have. But his interests are greater than him now, he isn’t sure they revolve around him at all, and to say something like that would be in direct contrast to what he desires.

“Fighting White Walkers,” Jaime says instead, because it’s not truly a lie.

Tyrion shakes his head and turns his eyes skyward. “Whenever someone says that name, I remember what it is I desire most in the world.”

Jaime raises a brow. “And that is?”

Tyrion huffs a laugh. “A drink.”

Jaime scoffs good-naturedly. “I see you’ve changed a great deal, then.”

Tyrion lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “Yes, well, the more I see of the world, the more I realize how utterly fucked it all is. And you? You must have changed somewhat to be here, without Cersei.” Tyrion pauses. “You are without Cersei, I assume?”

Jaime hesitates. If he doesn’t already know that Cersei isn’t coming, Sansa must have withheld that information for a reason. She probably rightly fears Daenerys turning her attention south, and if she fears it then so does he.

“For now,” Jaime replies diplomatically.

Sansa and Jon seem to be finished arguing over in the corner, though it looks to be unresolved if Jon’s surly look and Sansa’s stiff back are anything to go by, so Jaime takes that as his cue to stand.

Tyrion does, too, and Jaime gives him a small smile and nod then crosses the room to join Sansa’s side.

“Should I go back to my rooms then, my lady?” Jaime asks quietly,

“That would be prudent, ser,” Sansa agrees, throwing a scowl to Jon for good measure.

Jaime puts his hand on the small of Sansa’s back as he goes to leave. He might dismiss that action as instinctual, which it partly is, but also he’s more than a little cranky with Jon, both for how the other man is looking at him and how he thinks he can change Sansa’s mind.

Still, he doesn’t exactly expect Jon’s hissed, “Don’t touch her,” and the strong hand the man places on Jaime’s shoulder.

Jaime’s glad Jon kept his objections quiet enough that no one leans to overhear, because now he can sass the boy.

“Oh, sorry,” Jaime says, smirking, “is that your job?”

Both Jon and Sansa’s eyes widen comically round, and Jon sputters for several moments, and then his hand slips from Jaime’s shoulder and falls back by his side.

He doesn’t object again, and Sansa avoids both their eyes, and he doesn’t know if that makes things better or worse but by gods Jaime is frightfully amused.

“I’ll escort you back,” Sansa mumbles, and again Jon says nothing.

Jaime and Sansa leave with no further fanfare, and once the door closes behind them, Sansa presses both her hands together.

She doesn’t speak to him as she begins to walk, and he feels a little abashed now, at how obviously embarrassed Sansa is, but he doesn’t really regret saying that.

Jaime doesn’t even know if the route they take back to his room is the same as the one they took there, but it takes about the same amount of time. By the time they return, Jaime definitely feels a bit more guilty.

Sansa doesn’t have anger left in her, though. She just sighs and says, “You really shouldn’t tease him like that, you know. He loves Daenerys. He doesn’t need to worry about his sisters perversions.”

“Cousin,” Jaime corrects.

Sansa shrugs. “It doesn’t matter.”

It does, Jaime wants to say. There was a time when he would have given anything, taken anything, done anything, for he and Cersei’s love to be legitimized in such a way. But Sansa clearly won’t be convinced, not today.

“Your confinement will be lifted now,” Sansa says after a few moments. “I ask you don’t make too many waves, but the secret will be out, now.”

“So I can just . . . leave.” The idea makes him feel uneasy.

“Don’t expect a grand welcome,” Sansa warns. “I’ve not clued anyone in to the fact that you’re here. Expect to be treated with as much distrust as Daenerys.”

The thought makes anxiety settle heavily in his gut. He’s not sure why.

Sansa leaves shortly thereafter, telling him that he’s missed the morning meal but that Arya will bring some food for him.

He spends the day avoiding the formidable task of leaving his rooms, both overwhelmed by the all the possibilities, and as well by being faced, yet again, as the untrustworthy Kingslayer. He hadn’t realized until just now how much he coveted people having faith in him.

He works himself into such a spiral that the thought of even leaving to join the evening feast almost makes him throw up.

He hides in his room, like the coward he is, until eventually a meal is brought to him.

It isn’t Arya, though, nor Sansa, nor anyone he’s seen before in fact.

It’s just a serving girl, who knocks lightly on his door and then scurries in when he grants her permission to enter.

“Where’s Arya?” Jaime blurts before he can help himself. “Ah, the younger lady Stark?”

The girl bows her head and doesn’t meet his eye. “The men leave tomorrow, my lord,” she says quietly.

Oh. _Oh._ He isn’t surprised, then, that Arya’s not here. He can’t imagine Sansa will join him either.

He nods at the girl, and she leaves the room quickly and quietly.

He wonders whether he should seek out Brienne, to say goodbye, perhaps. He has absolutely no idea where he would go to find her.

Jaime stands by his door, staring at the knob, wondering if he’s brave enough to leave. The more he thinks about it, the more he wants to go and see Brienne. There is so much left unsaid between them, and if he doesn’t have the courage to leave his room he doubts he has the courage to tell her he loves her, but she deserves to hear at least how much he admires her, what a brave fighter he thinks she is.

Jaime purses his lips as his hand settles on the knob.

He’s spent so much of his life being dishonourable, being the Kingslayer, being, being, being . . .

He’s been given an opportunity to repent that he doesn’t deserve. If he has been given it, he owes to it everyone – including himself – to claw his way back to humanity.

He swings the door open.

The roar of the feast reaches his ears, still in full swing. It makes him hesitate; will Brienne be there?

He steps outside anyway. He’ll look around first, then go to the feast if he must.

Jaime spends several minutes wandering through the maze-like, empty corridors of Winterfell. It’s dark, torches spaced at too-far intervals, and the echoing cries of the feast make it very eerie.

He rushes through as fast as he can without running, and eventually he finds himself standing at the main doors that lead out into the courtyard.

He knows from his experience sparring with Brienne how bitterly cold it can be outdoors at this time of night. No one will be out there.

Jaime sighs, then leans his back against the doors. What is he doing here? He’s wandering around the castle on some misplaced notion of – of what? Honour? Honesty?

Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. He should just go back to his room and wallow in peace.

“Are you lost, Kingslayer?”

Jaime lifts his head from its place on the door to look over to the terrifying silhouette at the end of the hall.

“Lady Arya,” he murmurs in greeting, then lets his head fall back.

Jaime doesn’t hear Arya’s steps, but when she speaks again it’s from in front of him, and it makes him start.

“You make for an embarrassing sight, did you know that?”

Jaime takes a deep breath to still his beating heart, then lets out a big sigh.

“I’m not surprised, no,” he replies.

“What are you doing here?”

There’s no small amount of suspicion in her tone, which is only fair. Sansa has told him, too, of Arya’s master ability to detect a lie now. The two things combined make him tell her the truth.

“I was looking for Brienne,” he admits.

Arya rocks on her heels in front of him.

“She’s still at the feast,” Arya says.

Jaime sighs. Yes, he’d feared that. He doesn’t want to go there, least of all because of the stares he’ll get. He doesn’t want to face Daenerys, even if she likely knows he’s here anyway.

“I’ll go back to my room, then,” he mutters, then pushes off from the door.

Arya doesn’t move from in front of him.

“She’ll probably be leaving shortly, though,” Arya continues, her eyes narrowed at him. “Sansa and Jon will be leaving within the next hour. Brienne will go with Sansa.”

“Okay,” Jaime says uneasily, looking from the short Stark girl to the corridor. He can just go find her in an hour.

Arya continues to look at him intently, and just as he opens his mouth to say goodbye, Arya speaks again.

“Come,” she commands of him, then pulls open the main door.

Snowflakes bluster through the door, along with an immediate chill, sending a shiver through him. He always thinks its cold inside, until he goes out. Then he realizes he doesn’t even know what cold is.

Arya walks through the door like she doesn’t even feel the cold, then holds it open for him with a expectant raise of her brow.

Jaime turns his head once more, back to the noise of the feast, back towards his room, and then follows her out.

He’s not entirely sure of their destination, though as they get closer he realizes it’s probably the training yard. He and Brienne have never come this way, but he recognizes the general direction they’re going in.

When they arrive, Arya tilts her head towards the training swords. “Pick something.”

Jaime purses his lip, but picks his usual sword from the line. He twirls it in his hand a couple times, then looks over to Arya.

Brienne has described Arya as an extremely formidable opponent, and if Brienne says it then he has no doubt. Brienne had even said that she and Arya usually come to a draw; he knows he’s no match for Brienne these days, but he hopes to still get a display of Arya’s skill.

Arya pulls her tiny sword from its sheath and Jaime can’t help but scoff.

“You think you can use that to beat a broadsword?”

Arya raises a brow, then twirls and kicks him right in the chest.

He falls straight on to his back, his breath knocked from him completely. Arya comes to stand over him, a smug little smile on her face.

“I think I don’t need to use anything to beat a broadsword.”

Jaime nods as he wheezes.

Arya gives him several more moments, then kicks him in the leg.

“Get up.”

Jaime groans.

“If I’m leaving you with my sister, I need to know she’ll be safe. Get up.”

Jaime lifts his feet underneath him, then pushes up from the ground. He wields his sword in front of him. Arya slides her own sword up and down the side of his, then steps back.

“Well?”

Jaime swings.

Arya blocks and disarms him in three moves. He’s back on his arse in one more.

Arya stands over him again, then prods him in the hip with the tip of her foot, much gentler than her previous kick but no less emasculating.

“This is just embarrassing.”

There’s no smile on her face, but Jaime distinctly gets the feeling she’s teasing him.

“You have a distinct advantage, don’t you think?”

“Did you think the Walkers would play fair?”

Jaime grunts in acknowledgement – he’s not an idiot, he obviously knows the next fight will be the fight of his life – but otherwise he’s too stubborn to give her the satisfaction.

Arya extends her hand and helps him up. She looks him directly in the eye, then switches her sword to her other hand and holds her dominant hand behind her back.

Jaime drops the tip of his sword into the snow and leans on the hilt heavily. “Now, see,” he says, maintaining eye contact, “I’ve fallen for this trick before. And if I accept your terms, then it will be even more embarrassing when you beat me anyway.”

Arya lets both her hands drop to her side. Jaime brandishes his sword, then awkwardly points the tip of it to her hands when she moves no further.

“Switch back,” he commands.

Slowly, a smile stretches across her face, predatory, full of teeth, like a feral cat, but no less impressed.

“Perhaps you truly have it in you to protect my sister after all.”

 

An hour later, Jaime has fallen on his arse more times than he cares to count. Certainly more times than he ever has with Brienne, which is less because Brienne is not as good as Arya and more because she is kinder. Arya has absolutely no compunction about going two moves further than need be to prove her point (though he thinks, more than once, that that point is less his meager swordsmanship and more that she finds it amusing to put a Lannister lord in the dirt).

He is bruised and sore and muddy beyond belief, but somehow, he’s in good spirits when Arya finally sheaths her sword.

“I should think they’ll have left by now,” Arya says as way of explanation. “Come. I’ll take you to Brienne.”

The cold makes his worn and stiff muscles seize quickly, and by the time they return indoors, a short three-minute walk, Jaime is limping steadily and he can hardly lift his arms.

The cries and laughter of the feast have died down but by no means are over. Jaime imagines there will still be hall-goers on the morn. He’s never been one to drink before battle, instead preferring the comforts of a bed that he won’t return to for weeks alongside a sound nights sleep. Others, he knows, can’t sleep a wink for all their nervous energy. There’s no right way to prepare. It’s always just as grisly.

Arya leads him silently through the halls.

She offers no praise on his performance - though she’d not shied from offering critiques and pointers - yet this probably suits him. Applauded by a girl, what, one-third his age? He wouldn’t even let _himself_ live that down.

Up stairs and around corners they go, until finally he starts to recognize where they are.

“I wanted to see Brienne,” Jaime says, “not go back to my own quarters.”

The filthy look Arya sends him tells him she’s well aware, and with her skill fresh in his mind, he shuts his mouth and keeps following.

His door looms ahead of them, and Jaime’s brow furrows, but they go past it and continue for a moment down the hall.

He can hear footsteps ahead, and Jaime’s mouth parts a little as realizes how close to Sansa’s chambers he’s been this whole time.

They round a corner, and then Brienne comes into view, Sansa and Jon waiting beside her as she unlocks the door, Bran sitting in his chair, gazing at the wall with detachment.

Arya clears her throat, and three of them look up at their intruders, though Bran does not even shift in his chair.

Sansa’s arm rests in the crook of Jon’s elbow, an easy smile on her face that widens slightly when she spots them.

Jon doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t glower, but he doesn’t look altogether impressed by Jaime’s presence, either.

Arya leaves his side to stand beside Jon, who ruffles her hair affectionately. Arya practically preens under his attention, but Jaime’s keen eye can spot a chasm of difference between the way Arya and Jon interact and the way Sansa and Jon do. So much so, in fact, that Jaime can’t help the meaningful glance Jaime sends to his Queen.

Her smile dips, then drops completely, and she turns her head for a moment. When she turns back, she plasters a smile on her face so fake that Jon’s indifference towards Jaime easily slips into an irritated glare.

“Good evening, ser Jaime,” Sansa greets. “What can I do for you? I know you’re aware I’m spending the evening with my family, but I will come see you after the garrison rides out on the morn.”

“Actually,” Jaime says, his gaze shifting from Sansa and to her guard, “I’m here to see Brienne.”

“Oh!” A genuine smile blooms on Sansa’s face. “Well then, by all means. We’ll leave you two alone.”

Sansa tilts her head towards him, conspiracy clear on her face for all to see – payback for his own look, he’s sure – then swiftly guides Jon, Arya and Bran inside her chambers and shuts the door.

Jaime can’t help but roll his eyes.

“You’ve grown fond of her.”

There is accusation in Brienne’s tone. He’s not entirely sure, though, of what he’s being accused.

“She’s quite a woman,” he says easily.

He might misinterpret the flare in her eyes as jealousy – perhaps she only wishes to protect her Queen from his straying eyes, and he’s willing to admit that stray they do - but he truly does think she might be. Jealous, that is.

The thought sobers him and he heaves a heavy sigh.

“Brienne, I –.”

“I’m not going to forgive you just because I ride out tomorrow.”

“What, pray tell, did I actually do?” He can’t help the frustration that leaks into his tone and makes his heart beat faster.

“You know what you did.”

He scoffs. “If I knew, then I would be able to seek forgiveness appropriately. You can’t truly believe I would let such tension and miscommunication linger between us because I think it’s _fun._ ”

Brienne, too, is frustrated, if her darkly hissed words are anything to go by. “You went back to Cersei. You warmed her bed, and you took her side. You showed a complete lack of character, of decency, and revealed to me the Lannister you always will be – no, more than that, you showed how weak you truly are, and there is no forgiving that.”

Her accusation is a sharp slap in the face and anger flares in him, hot and bright. “Aye, I was weak.” Did he just say _aye?_ He’s spending too much time with these damned Northerners. “I thought I was saving what little I had left. But here I am, am I not? She almost killed me for leaving, and you think me weak for denying her? For coming anyway?”

Brienne pauses, as if this is not something she had considered.

“Well,” Jaime says darkly, “I hardly expected your disposition to sweeten, but I _had_ expected you to ponder my transgressions for longer than the two seconds it obviously took you to arrive at your conclusion.”

Brienne seems truly startled, if not by his revelation to her then perhaps by how much her ignorance has embittered him.

“Ser Jaime,” she starts uneasily.

“I shan’t waste your time a moment a longer,” he interrupts, his hand tightening on the space where the hilt of his sword would usually lay. “Certainly I wouldn’t wish to expose you further to my weak Lannister character.”

He turns on his heel. Brienne puts her hand on his shoulder, but he easily shakes it off.

“Ser Jaime,” she says again, a little bit of desperation in her tone.

He is too far moved to anger for it to affect him in any way.

“I had come to wish you luck,” Jaime says as he starts to walk away. “I realize now, of course, that the well wishes would offend your sensibilities coming from one with such lack of character. Farewell, my lady.”

He rounds the corner, his steps pounding angrily on the paved walkway.

Brienne doesn’t call for him again.

-

 

Sansa, true to her word, arrives at his door after the army has marched off.

“Truly,” she says as he opens the door, ignoring his foul mood and dark eyes, “I don’t know how we all managed to keep my position a secret from them. I’ve barely kept it together.”

Her eyes sweep over his face. She must know more she lets on, though, because she doesn’t question what happened with Brienne and she entirely ignores the glare he gives her.

“Come on, then,” she says instead. “Are you going to protect me or what?”

“The only thing one needs to be protected from is the cold, black hearts of women,” Jaime mutters as he pulls the door closed behind him, “and as a woman yourself I hardly think you need it.”

Sansa lifts her chin and raises a brow at him as she folds her hands neatly in front of her. “You think I couldn’t lay with a woman because I am one myself?”

Jaime sputters, completely thrown off guard. She laughs, then begins to walk towards the main keep of Winterfell.

“You’re in a good mood,” Jaime notes, somewhat begrudgingly. He’d hoped they could wallow and nurse their broken hearts together.

“Daenerys is gone,” Sansa replies simply.

“Aye,” Jaime says cautiously, and there’s that aye again! “So is Jon.”

Sansa’s smile disappears and her jaw clenches.

“He’ll be back.”

“Sansa -.”

“He’ll be back.”

Her tone brooks no argument. He doesn’t bring it up again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so just so everyone is aware the first half of this has a pretty strong romantic jaimsa focus, but it is unrequited (as i said in the tags) and it is really focussed to the first half, so beware if that's something you don't really want to read. 
> 
> aside from that, this chapter is actually quite plot heavy (for me anyway haha) so i hope you enjoy it!

Now that Sansa’s attention is not divided in any way, she and Jaime spend an awful lot of time together. Partly, he knows, because she’s trying to fill a hole in her heart, but partly because she does enjoy his company.

There are all of three other people she spends any considerable time with, those being Bran, Samwell and Gilly. Samwell is often tending to the sick and Gilly has a place in the keep to uphold, however, and they both often disappear for days on end to reappear and reinsert themselves as if they never left. She spends quite some time with Bran, but he is often completely silent for hours and will hardly spare her a glance.

She confides in him, once, that she persists so staunchly with Bran’s companionship because she hopes to hear word of the front. Bran hardly gifts it to her, though, and her hours with him lessen and lessen as the war drags on.

Jaime is by her side, always, and as such his attachment to her grows and grows until he see’s her behind his eyelids as he sleeps.

He’s exposed to a lot of aspects of her nature in that time. He see’s her as a Queen amongst the people, often out in Wintertown sharing warm bread and braiding the hair of little girls, teaching them songs and sharing stories of the brave men out fighting to keep the monsters away.

He see’s her run the castle and the North with an efficiency that can only be borne from a combination of experience and knowing true hardship.

He see’s her laugh with Samwell, gossip playfully with Gilly, see’s her rock baby Sam to sleep time and time again, he see’s her cry and sob from heartache and he see’s her so despondent that sometimes he can hardly convince her to get out of bed.

He does not so strictly keep to proprieties as he should, as Brienne had done, and almost every night, instead of being posted at her door, he joins her inside her solar for mulled wine, while she does paperwork and he reads a book she’s picked out for him.

It’s almost nice.

It _would_ be nice, even, if fire didn’t constantly burn on the horizon, the smell of it thick and heavy always, even inside, the accompanying sound of a dragon’s roar echoing at any and all hours of the day.

Jaime’s had about two cups too many to drink tonight, and she has too. It’s been a particularly cold day, with hardly any hours of sunlight, and Samwell had stopped by only an hour before to say he didn’t think the sun would rise at all tomorrow.

Sansa has been scribbling frantically at parchment since, muttering about candle wax and how quickly it would disappear with no sunlight, and she’s been drinking steadily. Jaime, none too wisely, has been too, keeping both their cups constantly full.

Sansa has leant him a book of poetry, something he’s become unimaginably fond of since arriving in Winterfell. If only Cersei could see him now, he muses as he turns the page and takes another drink of wine.

He continues to read and she continues to scribble and they both keep drinking until the pitcher is empty and the wine is cold.

Jaime turns the page, then pauses as he recognizes a well worn page for what it is. It’s crinkled heavily, dried tear marks covering it and the next page, and there’s a splatter of red on there too, though he’s too scared to find out if its wine or blood.

Jaime lifts his eyes to Sansa, then back to the book, then up again to Sansa. She doesn’t seem to realize he’s stumbled across something so obviously well-loved, and he’s much too curious to read and find out why she loves this poem so much the page is crumpled.

_You may write me down in history_

_With your bitter, twisted lies,_

_You may trod me in the very dirt_

_But still, like dust, I'll rise._

_Does my sassiness upset you?_

_Why are you beset with gloom?_

_’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells_

_Pumping in my living room._

_Just like moons and like suns,_

_With the certainty of tides,_

_Just like hopes springing high,_

_Still I'll rise._

_Did you want to see me broken?_

_Bowed head and lowered eyes?_

_Shoulders falling down like teardrops,_

_Weakened by my soulful cries?_

_Does my haughtiness offend you?_

_Don't you take it awful hard_

_’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines_

_Diggin’ in my own backyard._

_You may shoot me with your words,_

_You may cut me with your eyes,_

_You may kill me with your hatefulness,_

_But still, like air, I’ll rise._

_Does my sexiness upset you?_

_Does it come as a surprise_

_That I dance like I've got diamonds_

_At the meeting of my thighs?_

_Out of the huts of history’s shame_

_I rise_

_Up from a past that’s rooted in pain_

_I rise_

_I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,_

_Welling and swelling I bear in the tide._

_Leaving behind nights of terror and fear_

_I rise_

_Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear_

_I rise_

_Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,_

_I am the dream and the hope of the slave._

_I rise_

_I rise_

_I rise._

His head muddy and confused and all too warm, it falls back of it’s own accord and an unbidden groan leaves his lips as he realizes he is a little too in love with the young girl.

Loving Brienne is different; it is a knife twisting in his heart, it is the feeling of swallowing razor blades and twisted tongues and it is risking your life to save the other.

Loving Sansa is like sleeping; it is natural and inevitable and easy.

Sansa’s foot prods his knee beneath the table, and it pulls him from his thoughts.

“Have you been out-drunk by your Queen?”

Jaime opens his eyes and lifts his head, and takes in her rosy cheeks and parted lips. No, he most certainly has not.

“I’m twice your size,” he says grumpily, then lets his head fall again.

Sansa scoffs. “You are not!”

Jaime doesn’t reply, instead settling further into his chair.

Maybe he could stay here tonight, he thinks blearily, the warmth of the wine and fire making him feel cosy and safe.

Sansa falls into silence, not prodding him any more, and Jaime slips quickly in and out of sleep to the sound of her scratching quill.

He wakes properly several minutes later, blinking his eyes open as her quill stops. She’s staring into the fire, a deep, sad look on her face. The flush in her cheeks has receded, somewhat, but her eyes are hooded and she’s obviously still drunk.

She feels his stare and looks towards him.

“Jaime?” Sansa asks.

Jaime pauses. She’s never referred to him solely by his first name before. It’s always Ser Jaime, or Lord Lannister, or sometimes even Kingslayer, though he’s learned that’s only when she’s particularly irate with him and is reminding him of his place here in Winterfell.

She’s never just called him Jaime.

“Yes, Sansa?”

“Would you do me a favour?”

He doesn’t even know what it is, but of course he will. He’s very aware that he’s switched his devotion from one queen to another. He’s never been good with making choices for himself, and at least Sansa has respect for him as human being, if not for his fairly questionable choices. Cersei never had respect for any aspect of him.

“Yes.”

“Would you kiss me?”

His brows shoot up and then furrow. He’s not sure he heard her correctly, he can’t have. The wine is messing with his head.

“Uh, could you repeat that?” he asks, his fingers clenching.

She leans forward slightly in her chair. If she’s dissuaded by his hesitance, she doesn’t show it. “Kiss me, Jaime?”

She rises from her chair and steps towards him as his confusion mounts. He neither gets up nor moves from her reach, though.

Gods. How has he ended up in this position? He’s not exactly unwilling. She’s extremely beautiful, and he might love her a little bit, he’s definitely taken himself in hand and thought about her, but he . . . She’s supposed to be his redemption. A little fantasy never hurt anyone, but actually kissing her, perhaps taking her if she’s willing, he can’t be redeemed if he does that. It’s wrong, she’s but a girl and he’s more than twice her age, she’s Brienne’s mistress (and he _might_ love Sansa but he _definitely_ loves Brienne), and she . . . well, she deserves more than him. He can’t be redeemed if he condemns her to him.

“Lady Sansa,” he says, purposefully, so she’s knows he’s not going to, “you’re lonely and confused. I will not -.”

Sansa actually rolls her eyes at him, though he deserves it. He probably shouldn’t have worded it quite like that. “You’re an ass,” she tells him. “And you’re only partially right. I am lonely, but I’m not confused.”

“You’ve had some wine this evening -,” he tries again.

“Yes, which is why I even have the courage to ask,” she informs him. “I’ve been thinking about this for a few days, you know.”

The shock of it knocks him still. When has she been thinking about it? What _exactly_ has she been thinking? Has she thought about what his lips would feel like under hers, what he tastes like, what his muscles might feel like if her fingers trailed over them?

It’s a bit much, all of sudden. He needs her to stop talking, he needs to put a bit more space between them, because otherwise he’ll do as she commands and that’s just a bad idea.

She sighs. “I understand if you don’t want to,” she tells him. “You’re a smart man, you probably know why I want it anyway. Do you think me selfish?”

“Uh . . .” No, he has absolutely no idea why she would want him to do it, and if that makes him a stupid man then so be it.

She sighs again. “You don’t have to say it, I know you’re thinking it.”

She must be more confused about this than he realized, because she’s usually so good at seeing straight through him, picking from his brain the thing he wants to hide most.

“You must see me as no more than that stupid little girl you first met here years ago.”

That is definitely so far from the truth that he’s almost ashamed of how he does feel. He needs to say something, fix this miscommunication, but he can’t open his mouth to say anything, let alone tell her what he’s really feeling.

“I suppose it was foolish to ask this of you,” she continues. Maybe if he stays silent, he’ll be able to figure out what the fuck is going on. “Selfish, actually. You know where my heart truly lies, so you must feel truly exploited.”

Oh. _Oh._ He thinks he might understand now. She wants him to kiss her so she might forget about Jon.

He could do that for her.

An excuse, he knows. He knows his own mind well enough now to understand that he’s going to do it just because she’s given a good enough reason for him to feel justified. It’s not the right thing to do, he’s still taking advantage of her really, but he’s going to do it anyway.

He’s never deserved any redemption she could offer him, anyway.

He stands from his chair and closes the small distance between them quickly, intending to sweep her off her feet, intending to take her head in his hands and kiss her deeply and passionately, to blank her mind with a kiss like she’s never had before, but –

She holds her hands up defensively, and he stops immediately as they touch his chest.

He takes a step back as Sansa closes her eyes and screws her face up.

“Sorry,” she mutters, “I was just overwhelmed. Um, you can -.”

But he see’s something now that he’s so clearly missed for a long time. He had thought – he had _hoped_ – that she had maintained her innocence and maidenhead throughout her years at the hands of men, but that hope had been foolish and naïve and it feels like he’s done her a grave injustice by assuming that she had.

“This has never been pleasant for you, has it?” he murmurs to her. It’s such an understatement of a question, but he’s hardly going to ask outright whether she’s ever had sex with a man because she wanted to, because he made her feel good.

She purses her lips, but her eyes remain closed.

“Is it for any woman?” she replies darkly, her fingers wringing together in front of her.

He has been such a fool. It must be so hard, so painful, for her to want something from a man that will never be able to give it to her, to have to live with such terrible memories that she has to settle from them to be replaced with someone like him. Jaime may be no Ramsey Bolton, but he will never, ever be a Jon Snow.

He almost decides to just do away with this whole thing, to find another way to comfort her and her unrequited love, but her eyes open, determination making the blue spark like lightening, and she steps forward to take his lapels in her hands, tugging him close to her.

Not for the first time, the courage, the bravery of this beautiful woman standing before him absolutely floors him.

He will not take her, not now, not ever, but he will show her how beautiful and delicate a kiss can be.

The determination on her face melts away into wonder as the fingers on his remaining hand skim lightly over her flushed cheekbone. Her eyes close and her breathing deepens as his fingers trail down the side of face and over her bottom lip, then down her neck and across her collarbone, to finally slide down the side of her waist. His arm circles her hips, his hand splayed in the middle of her back and his golden hand resting between her shoulder blades.

“Shall I kiss you, Sansa?” he asks quietly.

“Yes,” she replies, breathless, anticipatory, but it’s not the voice of a woman in love.

But it’s close enough that he can pretend.

He closes the distance between them slowly, his arms resting around her very lightly so she can pull away at any time, but she doesn’t.

She’s hesitant, at first, and keeps very still as his lips first press against hers.

He pulls away for a moment, then kisses her again, a little longer this time, then repeats, pulling away and kissing again.

The fourth time he does that, he opens his mouth a little, and hers follows willingly; he sighs into her mouth, the sigh of a man who has waited a long time for this. He wishes he could put the noise back, wishes he had not revealed himself so completely, but Sansa follows with a sigh of her own that makes all thought blank from his mind and his cock twitch.

He doesn’t take the kiss any further, even angling his hips away a little bit, but Sansa does not let him stop. She presses her mouth closer to his, and moves the hands she had kept still into his hair, pulling his head closer to hers.

It takes all his strength to pull away, and even then she chases his mouth with her own. He has to use all his not so inconsiderable height to put distance between them, but even then it is not much, her own height allowing her to remain too close.

“Jaime,” she says, frustrated, “don’t _stop_ , I need -.”

“No, you don’t,” he says gently.

“Don’t presume to tell me -.”

“Sansa,” he interrupts, and that is all it takes for her to start to cry.

At first it is only a few tears, but within seconds she is sobbing into his shoulder, wracking, heartbroken sobs, the type that are difficult to hear because you can’t possibly understand how much pain a person must be in the cry like that.

“I – I – l-love him s-so mu-much,” she hiccups out, and Jaime’s heart cracks in two.

He knows exactly how she feels.

Tomorrow, he will walk beside her to Wintertown and help her give the hungry food, he will follow her through the walls of Winterfell as she goes about her duty as Queen and never again will either of them mention what happened between them this evening.

Tonight, though, he sits beside her and cries too.

 

-

 

Dawn finally breaks one moon after the sun last set.

It is perhaps less time than Jaime had expected, but the perpetual darkness had set a heavy mood in the castle that is only lifted with the sun.

The sun hangs in the sky for all of two hours, but still it works it’s magic and thaws both the hearts and homes of people.

Every day the sun stays longer and longer, until about a week later it stays for several hours and the army marches back.

Jon and Daenerys come back, each atop a dragon.

Well. Jon must have spilt his sordid secret, then. It’s no surprise Daenerys hadn’t cared and continued her love affair with the man. Jaime might be surprised that Jon had continued on, but considering Jaime knows where Jon’s heart truly lies, he knows it would be rather hypocritical for something like family relation to get in the way of his relationship with Daenerys.

How dark and twisted that thought is, Jaime muses as the gates open under Sansa’s command.

Jon’s eyes immediately seek out his cousin, relief palpable on his face.

Genuinely, the boy is such a terrible actor! How anyone could truly believe him in love Daenerys and not Sansa is absolutely beyond Jaime, but here they all are, he supposes.

Sansa has tears in her eyes.

Jaime curls his hand around Sansa’s elbow to ground her. She turns to him, almost unable to tear her eyes from Jon, but manage it she does. It breaks the spell, and Sansa’s face screws up for a moment, such longing and heartbreak on her pretty face, but then she smooths her face back into a mask, murmurs, “Thank you,” to him and goes to Samwell to help organize provisions for the men.

She does not go and greet either Jon or Daenerys.

Arya finds them quickly.

The sisters embrace tightly and for several minutes. Jaime turns away from them to give them privacy, but neither of them truly notice him anyway.

Arya pulls away first. “Why didn’t you greet us at the gates?” Arya accuses. “Jon’s been babbling about you for days! He’ll be heartbroken you weren’t there.”

Jaime certainly believes that, but by the hardened look on Sansa’s face he can tell she doesn’t. “I’m busy.”

“Too busy to greet your family?”

Sansa purses her lips, then sighs, her shoulder sagging. “You’re right. I’ll come say hello.”

He and Sansa follow Arya out to the courtyard, where Daenerys and Jon stand, overlooking the bustle of the courtyard and how quickly it’s being organized.

Jaime almost scoffs at the sight. They still think they’re in charge! It’s laughable.

“Do you think she’ll smite me on the spot?” Jaime ponders aloud to the two sisters. “Or wait a few days, lull us into security?”

Sansa frowns. “She’ll not do it at all if she knows what’s good for her.”

Jaime resolves to come back to that later, but currently he’s too distracted by Arya to address it.

“Oh, on the spot,” Arya says cheerfully. “She has neither the temperament nor the brains to plan a few days ahead.”

She throws a wicked smile over her shoulder, and Jaime barks with laughter as they approach the Targaryen couple, and then has to smother hysterics when Arya warmly greets the blonde woman with a familiar, “Queen Daenerys!” and a bright smile.

Jaime almost dies from the amusement of it all. He’s never seen a wider grin on Arya’s face, and he doesn’t even have to really know the girl to realize that that smile is as out place as a flower in winter. _How_ anyone falls for her bullshit is beyond him.

Daenerys seems wildly pleased by Arya’s affection – which only makes the laughter harder to contain – but she has a frosty glare for him.

Jaime can hardly bring himself together enough to look anywhere near abashed or contrite. He knows it enrages her, but gods above, he’s actually never been in an odder situation in his life and it’s _fucking_ hilarious.

He catches sight of Brienne, however, and his heart thuds dangerously in his chest and his smile dies completely.

He bows his head. “Excuse me, Your Grace,” he says, and backs away.

It’s ambiguous enough that Daenerys seems placated, but Sansa’s glare at him tells him she knows he actually meant it for her.

Brienne spots him coming towards her, and her gaze follows him the whole way.

“Lady Brienne,” he greets.

“Ser Jaime.”

Jaime rocks on his heels. “I trust you fought bravely and return uninjured.”

“Uninjured enough.”

Jaime nods. He doesn’t really know what to say, he just knows that he couldn’t let her leave the courtyard without speaking to her. Now that he’s here, he feels foolish.

She’s worse with words than even he is, though, and if he expected her to extend a helping hand in way of conversation then he is sorely mistaken.

“Well,” he says, and turns his head. “Good day.”

“Ser Jaime.” Brienne grabs his arm as he turns to walk away. “Daenerys intends to turn South immediately. Jon’s convinced her to let him stay here for now, but she’ll be back for him, and she expects him to go and rule by her side.”

“Turn South?” he says dumbly.

Brienne nods slowly. “Yes. For the Throne.”

“She’s going to kill Cersei?”

Brienne purses her lips. “I think she’s going to kill everyone.”

His breath rushes from his lungs. Dear gods. And he’d been stupid enough to hope that it was over.

The thought of Cersei dead fills him with neither relief nor sadness, as he’d wondered it might. The loss of sister fills him with more regret than the loss of a lover, and it’s how Jaime knows he made the right decision all those months ago.

Still, he has so little family. He wishes he could keep one more little piece of it.

Oh. Oh, _shit._ She’d been pregnant. Hadn’t she? He doesn’t know if she’d been lying about that. If she was telling the truth, the babe must surely have been born by now. Was it healthy, alive? Does he have a son or daughter?

Jaime must look stricken, because Brienne places a hand on his shoulder. “I think Arya plans to go, too,” she says. “Perhaps she may be able to bring you back something from the Keep, of Cersei’s.”

His child. He wants her bring to bring back his child.

He doesn’t say that, though, not to Brienne, but he nods at her and turns to leave. He needs to go and plan, and then speak with Sansa.

 

-

 

Gathered around the table, Jaime stands beside his Queen while Brienne resumes her regular position behind her back. Now that she’s returned, Jaime’s been relieved of his duty and has been enveloped into Sansa’s official fold as an advisor. He’s rather pleased that he doesn’t have to worry constantly for Sansa’s safety and whether or not he has the capacity to keep her safe. This role suits him much better these days.

Arya sits on Sansa’s other side, Davos on the other side of her, and Jon sitting at one end. Next to Jon, on the opposite side of the table, sits Grey Worm, then Ser Jorah, then Missandei, then Tyrion, and then Daenerys stands at the head of the table.

She’s waxing poetic about how bravely they all fought, how she led them atop her dragon, and Jaime can barely contain a yawn. Jon gave them a much more succinct, factual account just before Daenerys started talking.

“Finally,” Daenerys says, and Jaime sits a little straighter. “I would extend my gratitude to Lady Stark, for keeping the North and Winterfell in such good condition while it’s Warden and Queen fought hard.”

Jaime smothers a long suffering groan. If Brienne’s shifting weight behind him is any indication, she does too.

Sansa though, lowers her head. “Thank you, Your Grace.”

Daenerys smiles at her, completely fooled by this act that has been maintained for so long now. Jaime knows that Sansa still hasn’t even told Jon that she is Queen. The secret won’t remain much longer, not now the war is over and too many people know, and Jaime practically counts down the days until he can see Sansa regarded as Queen properly.

“I have only a couple matters left to discuss, though they go well together I think,” Daenerys says. “Firstly, the matter of Warden in the North.”

Sansa stills, as does Jon. Jaime turns his full attention to Daenerys.

“Now, I know Jon has been appointed, but I’d rather hoped he might consider coming South with me.”

No one says anything. Daenerys continues onwards.

“It’s his choice, of course,” she says. “If he doesn’t want to be Prince Consort, he’s more than welcome to stay here in Winterfell, as Warden. I understand, though, that this would put you in a difficult position, Lady Stark, which brings me to my second point.”

Dear gods. Dear gods, what is happening? Jaime expected her make to demands, to throw her fist out and tell everyone to do what she pleased or else she’d burn them, but this is a side he hasn’t seen before. Maybe the war has sobered her.

A look at Tyrion, though, and he can see that he has no idea where this is going. She must just be making it all up as she goes along, Jaime thinks.

“Obviously you can’t remain as the Lady of Winterfell if Jon stays,” Daenerys says.

“Daenerys,” Jon interrupts, leaning forward.

Daenerys hold out a hand to silence him. He frowns, though does as bid.

“He will have to take a wife rather quickly, and she’ll serve as the Lady of the castle.”

Is Jaime imagining that malicious glint in her eye? He doesn’t know.

Sansa is stiff beside him, though she can’t tear her eyes from the blonde woman.

“I, however, recognize your skills, my Lady, and I think they would be better served further south, don’t you? I propose that you come south with me, if Jon won’t. We’ll ally the North and South with a different marriage.”

Jon shoots up from his chair. “I’ll go South.”

Daenerys doesn’t take her eyes from Sansa, who licks her lips, her hands clenched tightly on the armrests.

“Which suitor did you have in mind?” Sansa asks finally.

“My Lord Hand, of course.” Daenerys places a gentle hand on Tyrion’s shoulder.

Sansa’s face completely shuts down and she leans back in her seat.

“My Queen,” Tyrion says, shooting to his feet. “I don’t -.”

“No.”

Sansa voice is firm and resounding. Daenerys looks a little surprised to see such conviction from her.

“Well, it’s not your choice, you understand,” Daenerys says, lifting her eyes to the other end of the table. “It’s Jon’s.”

“I’ll come South,” he reiterates. “Sansa is to stay the Lady of Winterfell.”

“Hmm,” Daenerys hums, her eyes straying around the room in a way that makes Jaime think she’s _bored._ “I’ll let you think about it, then.”

Sansa stands from her chair. Everyone’s gaze immediately falls to her, a regality to her that is unmatched by any other person in the room. Jaime wonders if it’s time.

“I’m afraid, Your Grace,” Sansa says, her voice cold, “that you are sorely mistaken. It _is_ my choice.”

Daenerys does now look surprised at Sansa, as if she truly hadn’t expected such a resistance.

Daenerys gathers herself enough to force a light laugh. “Now, now, my Lady, don’t be intimidated by -.”

“I assure you, Your Grace,” Sansa interrupts calmly, “it is not intimidation I feel.”

Jaime wishes he had the satisfaction of watching Daenerys’ mouth drop open into a surprised little ‘o’, but it does not. Instead, her lips purse tightly together and anger starts to simmer on her face.

“I’m willing to compromise, however,” Sansa says, and sits back down. “If it’s a Stark-Lannister marriage you desire, then I will marry Ser Jaime.”

Jaime and Jon’s head snap towards the woman, but she looks at neither of them.

“Or if it’s a Stark-Targaryen alliance you want and you are oh so concerned about Jon and I sharing the same seat of power, then I will marry him.”

Jaime didn’t think he could possibly be any more shocked, but here he is. He blinks owlishly at Sansa, as does Jon, as does about everyone in the room except Daenerys.

She’s looking at Sansa with something like loathing. Jaime’s hand discreetly settles on his hip, where his sword lays.

“Lady Stark –.”

“That’s my counter offer,” Sansa says smoothly. “I’ll even let you decide which you prefer.”

“ _Let_ me?”

“But I won’t be told to marry someone I don’t want to. And I won’t be told to leave Winterfell. Not by anyone. Not ever.”

Silence reigns in the room. Daenerys obviously can’t believe that the conversation has fallen so far out of her control, though grasp to regain it she does.

“I won’t have you go against my wishes,” Daenerys warns tightly. “I’m to be Queen of Westeros and I won’t have you stand in my way.”

Jon and Jaime both start to rise from their seats, to do what Jaime doesn’t know, he just knows he has to get Sansa as far away from Daenerys as possible.

Sansa remains calm in the face of cruel anger, though.

“You won’t stand in my way,” Daenerys repeats. “I’ve given everything to be Queen of Westeros. I know you don’t quite understand what that’s like.”

The room stills at the accusation, then flurries into activity. While Daenerys’ party couldn’t know how provocative that statement is and so stays seated, everyone else jumps to their feet, even Tyrion. Jorah and Grey Worm fly to their feet in reaction, their hands resting on their swords.

“ _Daenerys,_ ” Jon snaps sharply.

Sansa, the calm in the storm that she is, stays seated.

Daenerys, however dense she is, can instantly tell that she’s said something irreparably wrong. Jaime doesn’t know if she’s been intentionally cruel, or if her statement is just thoughtless and unprovoked like so many of her actions are.

“Daenerys,” Jon says again, warning clear in his tone and on his face. He’s unlikely to challenge her here, right now, on the back of Sansa’s own challenge, in front of so many people, because she is too likely now to feel cornered and lash out. Jaime think’s Jon has done right to say anything at all.

Sansa, finally, stands, her hands clasped behind her back. She is not in as much control as Jaime thought she was, because her voice comes out harsh and clipped. “Unfortunately, Your Grace, I understand better than you think I do. Excuse me.”

Sansa’s party files out after her, though Jon stays behind, a fierce glare on his face.

Before the door has even closed, Jaime hears Jon’s enraged voice fill the room. “You think she doesn’t _understand?”_

 

Jaime stays with Sansa for a couple of hours as she tersely goes about her work.

He tries to lighten the mood, once, with a, “You’d marry me, huh?”

She shrugs, though still there’s a harsh line to her mouth. “You wouldn’t hurt me.”

(Jaime wonders if that means Tyrion would).

“She made a good point, about the shared seat of power,” Jaime says a little bit later, because he doesn’t know how to quit while he’s ahead. “You could easily present it to the Lord’s as a reason for you and Jon to marry.”

Brienne, walking beside them, almost misses a step, but she doesn’t say anything and recovers herself quickly.

“I wouldn’t,” Sansa says flatly. “He doesn’t want to marry me.”

Jaime has the audacity to rolls his eyes. Sansa glares at him. Brienne sighs at his stupidity. Still, he presses onwards.

“He’d rather marry you than her, clearly,” Jaime says.

Sansa stops walking to turn her glare at him in its full capacity. “No, not clearly. He chose to go south. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“I think he’d rather marry you than anyone.”

He’s pushed too far.

“Leave, Ser Jaime,” Sansa commands, turning from him. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He hadn’t been aiming to make her dismiss him, but he’s not too worried about it. He wants to speak to Tyrion anyway.

Sansa and Brienne depart down the hall, Brienne shooting a wide-eyed look at him over her shoulder. He smiles back as best he can.

Once they’re out of sight, Jaime turns sharply on his heel and goes to Tyrion’s chamber. Jaime has no idea if he’ll be there, but surely it’s been enough time that he’s no longer with Daenerys.

Jaime pounds on Tyrion’s door with the palm of his hand. Tyrion opens the door a moment later, exhausted and slightly bleary eyed.

“Jaime,” he greets. He’s obviously been drinking, though he’s not drunk yet. Good. Jaime can lay into him then.

Jaime steps in, then closes the door behind him. Tyrion pours a second cup, then extends it out to Jaime. He doesn’t take it.

Tyrion sighs. “Look -.”

“Why wouldn’t you have told her not to say that?” Jaime demands of his brother.

Tyrion hesitates. “I didn’t think I had to,” he replies, then rushes to add, “not that I think she was being purposefully cruel. It was just . . .”

“Selfish,” Jaime supplies bitterly. “Thoughtless. Single-minded.”

Tyrion takes a deep drink. “She didn’t know about Bolton. I didn’t know.”

“Didn’t kn - Tyrion!” Jaime starts, outraged. “Bolton is the last in a long fucking line! What about Joffrey? What about Cersei? What about Littlefinger?”

Tyrion obviously doesn’t know what to say. Perhaps he is surprised by how vehemently Jaime is defending Sansa, but perhaps he isn’t.

“If it makes you feel better,” Tyrion says quietly after several minutes of silence, “Snow really tore into her over it. They were still going when I left.”

Jaime purses his lips as Tyrion looks up to him. Jaime knows Sansa has a plan. He knows she worked hard with Varys while the war waged, quietly trying to either get him to her side or to negate him as player. He thinks that Sansa has probably had a quiet word or two with Tyrion, as well, though she’s had much less opportunity to do so with him than she had with Varys.

“And what did Daenerys say?” Jaime asks carefully.

He has to play this right. Jaime can sense that it’s a turning point.

“She’s too stubborn to admit she was wrong.”

Jaime starts down at Tyrion. Tyrion stares up at Jaime. Tyrion looks away first.

Tyrion hesitates, then takes another drink. He says nothing as he pours more wine into his cup. “I think I . . . may have . . . misjudged the situation.”

Jaime takes a seat opposite Tyrion. He picks up the goblet Tyrion had poured for him, though he doesn’t take a sip.

“What situation?”

“Her. I think I’ve misjudged her.”

“Oh.”

Jaime doesn’t know what to say. He wishes Sansa were here. She’d know what to say.

“I don’t think she should rule,” Tyrion says, without any encouragement.

Jaime almost blurts it out, that there’s a plan in place, but that would be foolish. He needs to be much more careful than that. He needs to maneuver Tyrion into place without telling him too much. That’s what Sansa would do.

“If you truly think that,” Jaime says, gripping his cup tightly, “keep me apprised of the situation as you travel south with her. Tell me how she is as you travel, tell me when she’s taken King’s Landing, tell me when she turns back north again. Everything she does wrong, everything she does right. I want to know it all.”

Tyrion nods. “I will.” His fingers drum against his armrest. “Is this information for you? Are you planning to rule?”

Jaime hesitates. “If I were? Would it make your decision easier?”

Tyrion rolls his eyes skyward. “I think I could live with my brother on the Throne. Restoring the Lannister name and such.” Tyrion’s eyes turn towards him sharply. “Or is it Jon? Is he planning to take her crown?”

Jaime doesn’t want to give Tyrion any ideas, especially if this is all a ploy, and so he musters all his conviction to say a serious, “No,” and Tyrion looks like he believes him, only made easier because Tyrion already has it in his head that Jaime wants to rule.

“One last thing,” Jaime says, before he stands. “Cersei was pregnant.”

“I know.”

“If the child lives . . . would you bring them to me?”

“Well,” Tyrion says, taking a deep drink from his cup, “you will need an heir.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> poem is Still I Rise by Maya Angelou


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how did a jaime pov come to be my longest jonsa fic you ask? i don't have an answer 
> 
> a couple of things: 
> 
> thanks everyone for sticking with this fic! i know a jaime pov is probably not everyone's cup of tea, especially considering just how jaime-centric it actually was. i hope this final chapter is satisfying! 
> 
> also: so. now. i'm nothing if not consistent, and so i PROBABLY don't tie up the ends as nicely as i could have, but i've been considering over the past few days adding/changing some scenes and i've decided i really just can't look at this fic any longer, so this is what we've got. 
> 
> much love to everyone and ill see you next time!

Two weeks later, Jaime sits in his chambers after dinner, reading his first update from Tyrion who travels beside Daenerys on the way south.

There’s nothing of note in there, besides the fact that she’s unimaginably angry and that he’s having a hard time convincing her not to just fly over King’s Landing and burn the whole city to the ground.

Jaime rubs a hand over his face as his door swings open.

“Jon came to me today,” Sansa says as she enters the room.

There is something wistful and suggestive in her voice, and Jaime smirks as he looks over his shoulder to her, leaving the letter from Tyrion on his desk.

“And he fucked you like a good brother should?”

Sansa flushes from her neck to her roots, but where he thinks there should be fury there is only embarrassment.

“Don’t say things like that,” she commands him as she walks further into his room.

He’s occupying the only chair in the room, so Sansa takes her place by sitting daintily on his bed.

He swallows at the gorgeous sight of her, her graceful fingers running along the fur covers. Sometimes he thinks he’s moved past his infatuation with her and realized he didn’t _really_ love her, and other times she enraptures him so completely he can’t tear his eyes from her. This time falls somewhere in the middle.

“But no,” she continues, and with those two words Jaime knows that she entirely wishes that that _had_ happened today. He pushes away any notions of romance between he and her that he has, this a strong reminder that her heart firmly lies elsewhere. “Something slightly more interesting, actually.”

Jaime raises a brow and turns fully towards her, the chair scraping against the ground as he turns it.

“More interesting than your so-called unrequited love being reciprocated?”

Jaime can’t really see what it could possibly be.

“Jon claims that seducing her was his plan all along.”

Jaime raises a brow. “You’re only just now realizing that?”

“I had suspected,” she starts, and when he scoffs she purses her lips and modifies, “I had _hoped._ Encouraged none-too-gently by you, by the way. If you’d been wrong, you would have had to live with the fact that you’d bolstered my hope.”

Jaime rolls his eyes. “You can’t make me feel guilty now we know I was _right_.”

“Well, in any case,” Sansa says, “he finally told me the truth.”

“Why?”

Sansa scoffs. “He doesn’t know what to do next. He wants my advice.”

Jaime scoffs, too. “Gods. And?”

“And I told him I have it handled.”

“Do you?”

Sansa stands. “I’m setting her trial for the day she returns.”

“On what charge?”

“That depends on what she does in King’s Landing.”

“And if all she does is kill Cersei?”

“She won’t. She’ll do more.”

“But if she doesn’t?”

Sansa sighs. “Then I will charge her with war crimes associated with your battle with her.”

Carefully, Jaime says, “That was in the Crownlands. You don’t have dominion over that. You can’t charge her with crimes committed outside your kingdom.”

“Jon will make his claim, then. It’s stronger than hers. Then she will have committed the crimes in his kingdom.”

“He’ll make his claim at the trial?”

Sansa huffs and crosses her arms. “Then I will lie and make something up!”

Jaime stands, too. “I will help you, Sansa. Let me help you.”

Sansa rubs her forehead. “How?”

He lets out a breath. Finally. He turns back to his desk to pick up the scroll.

“Tyrion,” he says simply, holding the scroll up between thumb and forefinger.

Sansa snatches the parchment from his hand and Jaime smiles fondly at her as her eyes greedily rake over what’s written.

“You turned him?” Sansa breathes, her eyes lifting.

“He thinks I want to be King of the Seven Kingdoms.”

Sansa huffs a laugh. “He always was too hungry for power.” She looks back down the letter. “Thank you, Jaime.”

Jaime shrugs, though he’s pleased with her gratitude.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says. “Sleep well, Ser Jaime.”

Jaime doesn’t sleep well, however. He has too many worries on his mind. He worries, of course, about Sansa and how she will deal with Daenerys and what she’ll do about Jon, he worries about Tyrion and even Arya, travelling south with Daenerys, but mostly he worries about his child.

Now that it’s within his reach, now that someone has gone to get them, Jaime can’t stop thinking about it. He wonders what he’d do with a child. He doesn’t know a thing about raising children. Would they stay in his room with him? Or would he give the child to a family that can raise them properly? The idea seems silly, at first, a smallfolk family never able to protect and feed a child as he could, but children need more than that. They need love, and affection, and he doesn’t know to give that.

Jaime rises in the morning with little sleep, as he has for the past few weeks, then joins Sansa in the Great Hall to break his fast.

She and Jon aren’t sitting as close as they usually do, are even turned away from each other a little bit. Brienne sits beside Sansa, awkwardly eating her meal.

Jaime sits on the other side of Brienne. “What happened?” Jaime asks, inclining his head towards the pair as a plate of warm bread, boiled eggs and cured ham is set in front of him.

He wonders when babies start to eat solid food.

Brienne shrugs. “I’m not sure. She went and saw him after she saw you, but she came back to her chambers jumpy.”

Jaime ponders what could have happened between them as he breaks his fast. Jon stands as Jaime is half way through, awkwardly mumbles his farewells and leaves. Sansa doesn’t look up from her plate, though a blush strains her cheeks.

Jaime picks up his plate and moves to the seat Jon just vacated.

“Okay,” he says, “tell me everything.”

“You noticed?” Sansa mutters.

Jaime actually laughs out loud. “Noticed?” he repeats, amused. “Sansa, darling, you’re _blushing._ Even Brienne noticed, didn’t you, Brienne?”

“Leave me out of it,” Brienne replies, staring down at her plate.

Sansa sighs heavily. “Fine,” she says gloomily. “We almost kissed last night.”

Jaime grins. “Well, well,” he says, “do share.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sansa says. “He made it clear he thought it was a mistake.”

“Gods,” Jaime mutters. Ridiculous. “Did he say he didn’t want to kiss you, or that he didn’t want you to feel pressured?”

“The first one.”

“Tell me his exact words.”

Sansa pushes her food around her plate with her fork. “He said, ‘We shouldn’t, Sansa. It isn’t a good idea.’”

Jaime would almost be impressed with the boy’s spine and forethought if it weren’t so frustrating.

“Alright,” Jaime says, pushing up from the table, “come with me.”

Sansa and Brienne look up to him.

“Now,” he says, crossing his arms and tapping his foot impatiently.

Both ladies stand from the table and follow him as he walks briskly through the castle.

“Are you taking me to Jon?” Sansa demands suspiciously.

“Yes. We’re getting this sorted out.”

Sansa stops and Jaime holds in a frustrated sigh and stops, too.

“You can’t make me.”

Jaime puts his hand on her back and pushes her forward. “Yes, I can.”

Sansa tries to wriggle out of his grip, but Brienne gently stops her.

“It might be a good idea, Your Grace.”

Sansa looks thoroughly betrayed. “I expected this from him, but you, Brienne?”

Brienne fidgets, but doesn’t move.

“Fine, _fine.”_

Sansa walks between the two of them but complains the entire way. Both Jaime and Brienne thoroughly ignore her, even though she tries her hardest to provoke them.

The closest she gets is by saying, “Perhaps you two shouldn’t be so intent on my love life and focus on your own. You two need more help communicating with each other than Jon and I.”

Jaime glances over to Brienne, who immediately has a blush spread across her cheeks, but the pair don’t stop until they’re outside Jon’s door.

Jaime pauses here, and looks down at Sansa. He’s not going to make her do something she doesn’t want to do. He doesn’t want to force her. If she said no, if she genuinely didn’t want to, he wouldn’t make her.

He looks down at her, and her eyes are wide.

Her mouth parts and she wets her lips, her fingers twining together and going white.

“Maybe it’s . . .” She wets her lips again. “It could be a good idea.”

Jaime pounds on the door and does not give her an opportunity to change her mind.

Jon swings the door open, bewildered, an expression that only deepens when he spots the three of them outside the door.

“Uh . . .”

Jaime gently nudges Sansa’s shoulder.

She stumbles a little towards the door. Jon catches her waist to hold her up.

Jaime shares a knowing look with Brienne.

Sansa straightens up from Jon’s hold and smooths down the front of her skirts. “I wanted to talk to you.”

Jon steps back from the doorway and Sansa walks in. Jaime follows in, too, because he knows Sansa won’t follow through if he doesn’t and he’s about at his wits end with the two of them.

Brienne stays outside and closes the door. She’s not as much of a meddler as he is, so he understands why.

Jaime makes himself invisible by going over to Jon’s bookcase. His collection is much smaller than Sansa’s, and much more practical, but Jaime stands by it anyway.

“It’s about last night.”

Jaime hears Jon clear his throat.

“What about it?”

“Well, I – it’s just . . .” Sansa laughs, a tinkling, awkward laugh.

“Um, does he have to be here for this?” Jon asks, and Jaime can hear him shuffling his feet.

Jaime does not much care for Snow’s opinion, but his eyes slide to Sansa, in case she truly doesn’t want him here.

“His company soothes me,” Sansa admits.

Jon’s eyes flick over to Jaime. Jaime smirks, that suggestive little smirk that says, _yes, I’ve been keeping her all sorts of company,_ and Snow’s eyes widen a little bit as he turns back to Sansa.

“Look, I - . . . I’m still mad at you, Jon. For keeping it from me for so long.”

“You’ve hardly been forthcoming yourself, Sansa.”

Jaime turns away from them again.

“I’m mad that you kept it from me for so long,” she continues, ignoring Jon and his unhelpfully good point. “But I - . . . how do I even say this?”

 _I love you,_ Jaime thinks. _Just say you love him._

“The reason I wish I’d known is . . .”

Jon waits, as does Jaime.

Sansa doesn’t say any more.

Jaime purses his lips. He doesn’t know if he should interfere. He should really let them handle this themselves, but he also came in for this specific reason.

“ _Because_ ,” Jaime prompts quietly, pulling a book from the shelf.

He doesn’t see them react, but they both go silent for a moment, then Sansa takes a deep breath.

“Well it’s because I – oh, seven hells.”

They both go silent again, and Jaime turns to find out why, only to see them kissing one another, really rather deeply.

Jaime smirks and puts his book back in place.

The two break their embrace as Jaime starts to walk to the door.

“I love you, Jon,” Sansa murmurs.

Jon sighs contentedly. “I love you, too, Sansa.”

Their confession is not anywhere as satisfying as Jaime had imagined it was going to be, but he’s not sure why he ever pictured he’d be there for it anyway. Really, he’s lucky he’s not just hearing the story from Sansa, second hand, full of blushes and stumbled sentences as it so often is.

Still. He wishes – the romantic, imaginative part of him, at least, that has always consumed him when he’s in the throes of his own romances – that there’d been something more dramatic, a confession in the Great Hall in front of everyone, maybe Jon spurning Daenerys’ hand in favour of Sansa’s, maybe some kind of . . . kind of . . . well, he’s never really been one for public gestures, either. He, too, much prefers these quiet, intimate moments.

“Why did you say we weren’t a good idea last night?”

Jaime pauses with his hand on the knob.

 _“Because,_ ” Jon groans, “I’m just – and you’re so - . . .”

Jaime stifles a laugh, then opens the door and leaves them to it.

Brienne waits outside expectantly.

“We’ll direct traffic away from here for a little while, I think,” Jaime says, smirking.

Brienne smiles slightly. “That was a good thing you did.”

He shrugs. “A little more in my own self interest than I should admit.”

She smiles at him fondly, and their eyes stay locked for a few moments. Jaime’s breath hitches as he stares at the woman, and suddenly her eyes turn down, a little pink blooming on her cheeks.

“Brienne? Would you mind if I kissed you?”

She flicks her eyes back up to his. “No. I wouldn’t mind.”

Jaime steps closer to her, then reaches his hand out and presses it against her arm. Her breath shallows, then he presses his lips against hers. Her mouth is warm but hesitant, like he always thought it would be. Jaime walks them back until she hits the wall and slides his hands around her waist.

Brienne’s mouth parts around a moan, and Jaime’s does too, then Brienne flips them around so he’s the one with his back against the wall. She presses her body flat against his and Jaime moans again.

Brienne pulls away from him slightly, panting heavily. “I thought you . . . I thought you loved the Queen.”

Jaime chases her lips, but she pulls back from him and denies him her mouth.

“It’s true that she has a certain appeal,” Jaime answers finally, when it becomes clear Brienne won’t kiss him again without an answer. “And I must, in the interest of trust, disclose that I did fancy myself a little in love with her. But her heart lies elsewhere, as does mine own, my lady.”

Brienne presses their lips firmly together again, cupping his face in her hands. Her mouth presses his open, and then her tongue in running along his lower lip and Jaime can’t quite believe how turned on he is by the fact that she has taken complete control.

The door beside them swings open. Brienne steps back from him quickly, wiping her mouth against her arm, but a lovestruck grin has spread across Jaime’s face and he slumps back against the wall as Sansa steps out, Jon behind her.

Sansa pauses, and takes the pair of them in, but Jon is too besotted with Sansa to take any notice.

Jaime tries to wipe the smile from his face, but he can’t manage it. He must look a sight, a dopey grin, swollen lips, but Sansa is no better, her hair knotted and her own lips pink and well-kissed.

“You’re welcome, by the way,” Jaime says, all sass.

Sansa rolls her eyes. “You should be quiet,” she warns, “or else I’ll tease you mercilessly about your own romance.”

Brienne squawks unhappily, so Jaime doesn’t say anything further, for fear of offending her, not Sansa, but he can’t help his smile.

 

-

 

The day Daenerys returns, Jaime’s mind is buzzing with possibility.

There is so much that could go wrong, and yet, it’s almost all over.

Arya had sent word that Cersei was dead weeks ago, alongside one of the dragons. She hadn’t given any details, and had not written since. Jaime hasn’t heard from Tyrion since they were still marching southwards, between Harrenhal and King’s Landing.

Jaime waits beside Brienne in the courtyard, next to Jon and Sansa who stand side by side as King and Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. A match between them had made sense, to the Lords, and once it was approved Jon had announced his intention to claim the Iron Throne. With hardly any Houses or Lords left, there is no one with a better claim than a Targaryen Prince and the eldest Stark. There would be no contention, if anyone had even desired the Throne instead.

As it stands, they had not, and had even less desire to see Daenerys wear the crown.

Jaime thinks it’s rather ironic, really, just how enthusiastically their marriage and ascension had been accepted, considering how many hours they’d spent fretting over it.

It had even been suggested that Daenerys be apprehended and beheaded the moment she stepped back into the courtyard, trial withheld. No one had really cared.

Sansa cared, though.

As she had said so long ago, even Daenerys deserved a fair trial, no matter how it had to end.

And with the Starks the monarch’s of the continent, any crime Daenerys has committed on Westeros falls under their dominion.

They even have a plan to deal with her dragon.

Jaime is confident enough that the day will end in their favour.

And yet . . .

“They’re coming.”

Jaime turns his head towards Bran, who stares out towards the main gates. Sansa shifts on her feet. Jon’s hand rests gently on her arm and she gives him a small smile.

Jaime moves to Sansa’s side briefly. “This will work,” he mutters to her.

“I know.” She turns to him. “I hope Tyrion did what he promised.”

He smiles weakly. “Me too.”

Jaime returns to Brienne’s side. She doesn’t offer any comfort, but her gaze lingers on him longer than it should, so he knows that she’s worried about him.

Minutes later, dragon roar fills the air as Rhaegal appears on the horizon. Jon’s eyes fix on the creature, his lips a thin line.

Daenerys enters through the gates on horseback, Arya beside her.

Arya dismounts first and leaves Daenerys’ side to join her family. She hugs Bran first, then Sansa and Jon together.

“You two sorted your shit out, then?” Arya says as she pulls back from them.

Sansa huffs and Jon almost smiles.

“And everything is organized?” Arya asks, quieter.

Sansa gives an actual reply this time, her gaze becoming serious again as it shifts to Daenerys.

A final few minutes of playing pretend. Then this will all be over.

Daenerys approaches, a solemn expression on her face, no doubt a result of the loss of one of her dragons. Sansa drops into a low curtsy, and Jon into a bow. The few in the courtyard follow suit.

“I must say,” Daenerys says as everyone returns to their positions, “I had expected more of a welcome, considering what I sacrificed to prevail.”

She is displeased by how little people are in the courtyard, if her wandering eyes are anything to go by.

“Winter continues to be harsh, Your Grace,” Sansa says. “They all await you in the Great Hall.”

Tyrion enters then, a fair ways behind Daenerys, clutching a bundle in his arms. Jaime almost falls to his knees at the sight, but he can’t let his hopes get ahead of him. The child may be seriously ill, or even dead. It may not even be his child, or a child at all.

Still, Jaime’s feet are carrying him over to Tyrion before he can stop himself.

“I’ve lost her favour by bringing the child,” Tyrion warns as Jaime drops to his knees in front of him. Jaime almost starts to weep at the confirmation. “She wants to kill her, and I’ve been hard pressed to find any food for her. She needs to see a maester immediately. Don’t bring her into Daenerys’ sight again.”

Jaime reaches his fingers out, then realizes what Tyrion is saying, and remembers what is about to happen. He can’t take her yet. He needs Tyrion to hold her just a little bit longer.

“Can you keep her for an hour longer?” Jaime asks. His fingers brush the cloth holding his daughter. “I can’t take her just yet, and the maester won’t be free for an hour.”

Tyrion stares at Jaime with narrowed eyes. Slowly, he nods. “I trust that by keeping her safe I’ve earned enough favour to stay safe myself?”

“You won’t be implicated in what’s about to happen,” Jaime swears, and it’s true. Tyrion won’t be implicated _today._ He doesn’t know Jon and Sansa’s plan for Tyrion. Leniency, if his own case is anything to by, but perhaps not. Tyrion has always been less trustworthy, more fickle, than Jaime.

Still, Jaime hopes, perhaps for his own sake, that Tyrion will live.

His eyes drift down to the baby.

A girl. A daughter. He has a daughter.

Tyrion nods with relief. “Good. I would so like to buy a drink and a whore.”

Jaime would probably laugh at that if his voice weren’t lodged in his throat. His fingers drift over the furs again. He can’t see the baby they’re so thick, but that’s probably for the best.

“Bring her inside,” Jaime says softly, his hand dropping beside him. “We’re about to begin in the Hall.”

Jaime gets to his knees and looks over the royal party still not yet inside. Sansa catches his eye and he smiles widely at her. She smiles back, relieved.

“What’s about to begin?” Tyrion asks.

“A trial.”

Tyrion goes quiet. “You don’t want to be King, do you?” he asks finally, as they enter into Winterfell.

Jaime smiles slightly. “No, brother dearest. I’m afraid the position is already full.”

Tyrion sighs. “Jon?”

“And Sansa.”

Slowly, a smile starts to form of Tyrion’s face. “Well, well. Finally sorted their shit out, did they?”

Jaime laughs loudly and claps his hand on Tyrion’s back. “That they did, Tyrion. That they did.”

Tyrion shifts the baby in his arms, moving the fur from her face as they enter the warmth and safety of the castle. “Well,” he says, “they’re probably going to be better at it than you would be.”

Jaime doesn’t disagree.

They stand outside the doors to the Great Hall for a moment.

“Could I hold her for a second?” Jaime asks.

Tyrion offers the baby out to him. Gently, Jaime takes her from his arms and stares down into her pretty little face. She’s asleep, so he can’t see her eyes, but she has the cutest little nose and adorable little lips.

He remembers the feeling of being honest with Myrcella, those few minutes when he felt the most peace he’s ever had. This is exactly like that.

Everything melts away. It’s just him and his daughter.

All too soon, though, Tyrion brings him back to reality.

“Should you be in there?”

“Right, right,” Jaime replies distractedly. He closes his eyes and presses a lingering kiss to his daughter’s forehead. Then he passes her back to Tyrion, and opens the door.

Tyrion follows quietly behind him.

Daenerys stand in an open space near the front of the room, spouting demands, with Grey Worm and Jorah Mormont restrained to the side. Gathered in a crowd on one side is a collection of free folk, invited so they can share the news amongst the people. On the other side are the Lord’s and Ladies of every major House in the North, as well as several leading families from further south.

Jaime and Tyrion walk down the aisle between the two groups, down the centre of the room and towards the High Table, where the four Starks sit, regal as ever.

“You’ve decided to join us then, Ser Jaime?” Sansa calls from the Table, interrupting Daenerys, her brow arched. He knows she’s not really mad with him, just impatient to get this over with.

Still, Jaime bends into a deep bow, and Tyrion follows his example.

“Apologies, Your Majesties,” he says.

Sansa nods at them both, her eyes lingering on Jaime’s daughter for a moment before fixing themselves on Daenerys.

Jaime leads Tyrion to the front of the room, standing beside Brienne to the side of the Table.

“Tyrion?” Daenerys hisses. “You knew of this treason?”

Tyrion says nothing. His grip tightens on the baby.

Arya stands. “Daenerys Targaryen, you’ve been brought before the King and Queen of the Seven Kingdoms today to answer for your crimes against Westeros. Do you deny them?”

Daenerys blinks rapidly, obviously unsure which of that to address first.

“ _I_ am the Queen,” Daenerys spits, “and I demand you drop this farce at once!”

Arya sits back down.

Sansa melodic voice stretches through the room, sending Daenerys silent. “ _I fear for the safety of those in King’s Landing,”_ Sansa reads. Tyrion stills beside Jaime as he realizes what it is Sansa is reading. “ _A million people reside in the city, and Daenerys is so single-minded I think she will burn every last one of them in her mission. I don’t know if that mission is Cersei or the Throne, but even I, her Hand, am too scared to ask.”_

Sansa moves that parchment aside and reads another. Daenerys stands still. “ _Lady Arya has convinced Daenerys to wait a day before she storms the city. I don’t know what she hopes to achieve, but Daenerys has agreed anyway. If Lady Arya thinks she can save those in King’s Landing, then I will find a way to convince Daenerys to follow her lead. She becomes more and more unstable each day. I find myself all too easily reminded of our last Targaryen overlord.”_

Sansa stands, then, and Jon does too. “Daenerys Targaryen, you stand accused of the murder of combatants under your duty of care, in particular that of the Tarly House and their army; of deliberately targeting civilians and civilian objects during the ambush of the Lannister army; of holding the King in the North, now King of the Seven Kingdoms, captive on Dragonstone; and of marching against King’s Landing with the intention of burning the city alive and consequently murdering the previous Queen. Do you deny it?”

Daenerys’ eyes burn with fury. “Of course I deny it!”

Sansa tilts her head. “Did you want me to read out more evidence, _my lady?”_

Daenerys screams, a brutal, primal scream, rage filled. Jaime feels no pity for her.

Jon speaks then, his voice heavy and his face lined with exhaustion. “Daenerys Targaryen, you’re found guilty of committing crimes against the Crown and are immediately sentenced to death.”

What happens next happens so fast Jaime doesn’t understand the sequence of events until much later that evening.

Jorah twists out of his captor’s grip and manages to get his hands on a sword. He heads straight for the High Table. Jaime still doesn’t even know how he moves so fast.

One second he is standing at the end of the Table, the next the clang of swords meeting rings through the Hall as Jaime holds his sword high against Mormont’s.

Oh, how Jaime adores protecting Sansa.

Mormont is restrained again easily enough and forced to his knees beside Daenerys.

Jon’s voiced is lined with barely concealed anger as he speaks. “Jorah Mormont, you, too, condemn yourself to death for the attempted murder of the Queen.”

Sansa clears her throat. “Not to mention violating your banishment, which is still upheld by the current rulers of the North.”

Jaime doesn’t know, exactly, what Sansa and Jon have in mind for Daenerys’ death, and he doesn’t wait around to find out. Daenerys and Jorah are led outside, and some follow but most do not.

Jaime, instead, leads Tyrion towards Samwell.

“My daughter,” Jaime tells the other man quietly.

Samwell leans down to take the baby from Tyrion. “I’ll tend to her immediately,” Samwell says, an exhausted smile on his face. “And organize a wet nurse. I’m sure you’ve not thought that far ahead, Ser Jaime?”

Jaime mirrors Samwell’s smile with one of his own. “You’ve come to know me too well. How do you feel?”

Samwell sighs. “I hated my father, but my brother was a good lad. They didn’t deserve what happened to them, and this doesn’t bring them back. At least, now, she dies too.”

“Aye. Maybe we can finally get some peace.”

 

-

 

The next evening, Jaime knocks on Sansa and Jon’s door, exhausted from no sleep. His daughter had slept in bed beside him all night, and when he wasn’t awake trying to soothe her and rock her back to sleep, he was awake with the fear of accidentally rolling over and squishing her.

Brienne opens the door, and Jaime gives her a tired smile.

“It’s just Ser Jaime,” Brienne says to the couple seated in the solar.

“Just?” Jaime teases as he walks past her. He almost kisses her in front of Jon and Sansa, just to see what she’d do, but he has an inkling that answer is not as pleasant as he wants it to be so he leaves it be to join Jon and Sansa in front of the hearth.

Sansa stands immediately and scoops the babe from his arms before he can even greet her, then she moves away from him to stand in front of the fire, cooing at his daughter and rocking her gently.

Jaime shakes his head fondly at her, but honestly he’s relieved. His arms ache from holding them in the same position for so long.

Brienne hesitantly joins Sansa’s side, staring down at the tiny child in her arms. The two women start to talk quietly amongst themselves. He thinks Sansa might be teaching Brienne how to hold her.

Jon comes to sit beside him, handing him a drink. They both sit in silence for a moment, gazing at their respective lovers for a few, peaceful moments.

Jon turns to him eventually, though. “I have neither Sansa’s kind nature nor her capacity for forgiveness,” Jon starts, “and I can’t find it within myself to go to any effort to befriend you like Sansa has.”

“Well you’re off to a great start,” Jaime says sarcastically.

“I would probably not even bother to have this conversation with you if you hadn’t saved her life today.”

“It was rather valiant, wasn’t it?”

Jaime doesn’t know why he’s needlessly provocative to people he really shouldn’t be, but he’s never been one to know when to close his mouth.

Jon’s eye twitches in irritation and he takes a drink.

“ _However,”_ Jon stresses, after a few moments, obviously deciding to just ignore what Jaime said, which is probably for the best, “I want to thank you for protecting her, and for the strong guidance you have given her since you arrived here. She so desperately needed it.”

“If she hadn’t, I doubt she would have come to me,” Jaime jokes lightly, to try and avoid talking about feelings. He might be able to do it with Sansa, when it’s dark and they’ve both had too much to drink, but he can hardly do it with her husband.

“It doesn’t matter,” Jon says seriously. “I give you my gratitude.”

“A place in Winterfell is all I ask for in repayment,” Jaime says, and he’s only slightly joking.

Jon chuckles, taking the hint and leaning back in his chair. “I think Sansa would kill me if I denied you that.”

Jaime turns to him and lowers his voice. “Is she pregnant?”

Jon raises his brows in surprise. “How did you know?”

Jaime shrugs. He’s noticed something different about her over the past week or so, but he’s been so consumed with his own stress that he hasn’t asked her what’s changed. It wasn’t until he saw a baby in her arms that he realized he didn’t have to.

Jon groans. “She’s going to kill me. She wanted to tell you herself.”

Jaime hides his chuckle in the rim of his cup. “I promise to act surprised when she tells me.”

Sansa turns to them then, a beaming smile on her face. She comes over to them and sits gently on Jon’s knee. He rests one arm around her waist, and settles the other over her legs.

“Isn’t she beautiful, Jon?” Sansa murmurs, leaning into him.

“If you say so,” Jon teases, giving Jaime a small smile to let him he’s only joking.

“I do,” Sansa replies primly, obviously missing the joke. “Did Jon tell you I’m with child?”

“He did,” Jaime says, grinning widely, “He couldn’t wait to spill the secret.”

“I did not!” Jon replies indignantly. “He _guessed_!”

Sansa giggles and presses her lips to Jon’s temple, soothing him somewhat.

The baby fusses in Sansa’s arms, and her attention immediately turns back to her, rocking her gently and pressing her nose against the baby’s tiny cheek.

“Have you chosen a name for her?” Sansa asks, her eyes fixed on his daughter.

“I have,” Jaime says easily, though he’s nervous to tell her. He’d thought on it all last night, wondering what to call her, whether his idea was odd, perhaps a disservice to the little one’s mother, or maybe even insulting to her namesake.

He’d decided, in the end, to go with his instinct.

“Well?” she asks expectantly.

“I named her after the woman who gave me a new beginning.” All eyes in the room turn to him curiously. “Sansa. I named her Sansa.”


End file.
